


Captain America: Silent Hill

by claritylore



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Silent Hill (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Body Horror, Cognitive Dissonance, Dark Steve Rogers, Dreams and Nightmares, Ghosts, Gore, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Medical Experimentation, Mirrors, Nazis, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sleepwalking, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, doppelgangers, steve rogers & wanda maximoff friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 09:18:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9065578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claritylore/pseuds/claritylore
Summary: Hidden away in the remote hills of Siberia lies an abandoned town known as Сайлент Хилл, or Silent Hill. Since the 1940s, Hydra and its Russian allies have used the site for their most secret and dangerous experiments. This is the place where the Winter Soldier was born.





	1. Prologue / Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's the Captain America AU no one ever asked for...
> 
> This is post Winter Soldier/Age of Ultron, canon compliant-ish (more or less), but a total canon divergence from Civil War (delete that movie totally). It's a Marvel AU riff on the general Silent Hill story, the main premise of which is that a young girl called Alessa creates a dark alternate world in which the people who maimed and abused her are trapped and hunted by monsters which represent all of the bad things done to her. She is also able to split her soul up and incarnate them into supernaturally created alternate versions of herself. This should all make sense without any specific knowledge of that franchise, as this is entirely set in the Marvel universe, with some scenes borrowed from Silent Hill's 2006 movie version (not the games). There are no Silent Hill characters in this at all.
> 
> This will get a little gory along the way but stick with it for a happy ending.

**Prologue**

 

There was something very unnerving about the way they had been bundled onto a truck and squashed in, as though they were prisoners instead of volunteers, though Wanda was starting to wonder if there was really any difference when it came right down to it.

Pietro kept saying, 'We must do this, for our country, for all those who have died. We must be strong enough to fight.' In the crush of bodies, twenty or so crammed in per van, ten or more vans driving in a line on weatherbeaten roads through the snowy Russian plains, she had to wonder if it was really worth it.

This was to be Phase One of the tests, they were told. It would be difficult for all of the volunteers, but crucial as a means of discovering who carried the potential to become enhanced humans, and who did not. Pietro believed they had a chance to become stronger, so she did as well, much as she feared what exactly that meant.

They huddled together for warmth on the long ride into the hills, taking care not to speak to others, not to make friends. It was clear from the start to both Wanda and Pietro that some of the people who had volunteered for the experiments were pretty unbalanced, with grudges and anger rattling around their minds. Some were just cold and empty types. Some were desperate. All were possibly dead men and women walking anyway so there was nothing to do but ignore them and stick close to each other.

The drive was long and arduous and at the end of it, once halted, they were lined up in the cold, shivering through it, looking around at the ruined and empty town they had been dropped into. At the end of the broken up road was a graveyard, and beyond that the largest building by far stood, taller than the rest on an incline above some steps, steeped in rolling mist and gently falling snowflakes. On approaching by foot, its central tower came into view, a circular pane of stained glass below it, an enormous cross at the top of its spire, so weatherbeaten it had gone somewhat crooked and leaned too far to the left. 

They were marched past the graves, up the steps, and into the entrance of the large derelict church of Roman Catholic design. Once inside they were placed into lines by men with rifles and thick coats over their uniforms, and from there, they were led past the ruined pews to a hole in the floor where the altar had probably once been, now carved into a hollow circle with scaffolding in place below to create a walkway downwards. They were led down the metal steps, moving in a spiral, the electric bulbs showing them the way flickering ominously until they came to a long cavern carved into the rock on which that church stood, where a man in a German-looking uniform, thinning hair and a monocle was stood on a platform before them, flanked by guards. From the way it had been dressed, the walls drapped in flags of that red skull and tendrils they all wore, it looked like a church of a very different kind.

Wanda clung onto Pietro's hand as they joined the rank and file, nervously wondering what would happen next.

'Welcome,' the man said, his accent a match for his uniform, his voice loud enough to reverberate all around them. 'My name is Baron von Strucker. My associates and I are members of an organisation which seeks to build a better mankind. You have answered the call to aide us and for that, we thank you. The road ahead will be arduous and some here may not survive. Be assured, those of you who do will know wonders beyond all imagining.' Strucker paused to breathe in, heavily, as if overwhelmed with pride at the thought of it all. 'Before I continue, are there any questions?'

After a moment of silence, one of the other volunteers, an Indian man with yellowing nicotine-rimmed eyes, stepped forward and asked, 'Why have we been taken so far for this? What is this place?'

Strucker smiled, severely. 'We are nothing if not seekers of mystical forces, artefacts... places. This town is a source of great supernatural power.'

'Supernatural,' Pietro muttered to Wanda, incredulously. She could tell he was actually a bit disappointed, though she herself didn't know what to think. 'Oh good, we'll be seeing ghosts and werewolves and vampires.'

He had spoken louder than he meant to and all eyes had fallen on him, including the Baron's gaze.

'Werewolves no. Vampires, not so far. Ghosts, well now those we have some use for.' He turned to one of the gathered men, whose uniform denoted some sort of high rank. 'Perhaps a demonstration?'

'Now? Ist das klug, Herr Strucker?'

Strucker smiled again at Pietro, seemingly enjoying the opportunity presented. 'Perhaps it will concentrate the minds of our volunteers, to see the power they might learn to command.' He turned again to the other man. 'Fetch the book,' he commanded.

Once the man had scurried away, Strucker turned back to his audience, casting his gaze deliberately across all of them in turn. Wanda felt a chill go straight through her, sensing something building in the air, ready to crackle like a storm was approaching. She could feel the energy beneath their feet, thrumming upwards through the earth, building.

'This place is known to local towns and villages as Сайлент Хилл. In English, it means,  _Silent Hill_. It has been been the site of both our greatest failure and our greatest success. The great men and women who harnessed its power first were lost in the attempt. However, their work has gifted to us a legacy; one which has allowed us to shape history itself to our needs.'

The Baron stepped to one side as the mysterious book was handed to him.

Wanda craned her neck to see it; red, with a star printed on the front. She squeezed Pietro's hand, skin crawling, breath shallow. Whatever was building up, the pressure was almost too much to bear. 

'I don't like this,' she whispered to her brother, who was watching, rapt but still wary.

'For those of you doubt our ambitions or successes, I will show you now, our very own ghost.' 

On a nod from the Baron, one of the lower ranking soldiers took out a knife and cut his hand. He knelt down and drew something on the floor in blood in the empty space between the volunteers and the soldiers. 

It was a star, rendered in blood.

Then Strucker began to read words out from the book and the whole world turned red for Wanda, as it would remain for her forever after, one way or another. 

 

 

**Chapter One**

 

Steve was watching news footage on YouTube, the Russian file given to him by Natasha open on the table next to his laptop, when he heard something smash behind him. He was surprised to see Wanda standing at the entrance to his room, two mugs dropped onto the floor, the air filling with the aroma of coffee. 

'Wanda? What's wrong?' he asked, his concern for her outweighing any concern he had over the broken crockery. 

'I... I'm sorry... I just wanted to bring you coffee and you didn't answer my knock... and...' She put her hand over mouth, trying to compose herself. 

Steve pulled her into his arms and could tell that she was shaking. 'Did something trigger you... your memories?' Her brother's death had hit her hard and he had seen her get caught up in grief suddenly a few times when something unexpectedly reminded her of Pietro. 

'No,' she said. 'It's nothing. Just jittery.' Her smile was painfully forced but he wasn't sure what else to do except accept her at her word.

Steve turned back to the laptop and cursed himself for not putting the screen down, the helicopter footage of his fight with Bucky on the freeway continuing without his attention. 

'What were you watching?' she asked, eyes still downcast.

'Newsreel someone put on the YouTube website. My friend, Bucky. The one I told you about. It's before his mask came off, when we were fighting in downtown DC. I was just... I don't know. Idly watching.'

Steve stood up in alarm at the expression which came over her face. Wanda had gone pale, staring at him, no, _through_  him suddenly. 'What's the matter?' he asked, going to her instinctively, placing a hand on her arm.

'Nothing.' She laughed like she was being silly but he couldn't help but notice the way she turned and swiped her sleeve over her eyes. Steve frowned at her, pushing for an explanation with his concerned expression. 'Seriously, it's nothing. You're a worse mother than my brother was,' she chuckled.

That made him half wince, half smile. Steve opened his mouth to respond, but before he could the sound of buzzing rang out from the breast pocket of his shirt. 'Sorry,' he said, and pulled out his phone. After a moment of deliberation, Steve declined the call in order to focus on Wanda and figure out what was going on, but a text came through barely seconds later, a thumbnail picture appearing on the screen.

It intrigued him enough to swipe to access it and he found himself looking down at a photo of his friend which he'd never seen before; a colour mugshot of Bucky, clean shaven and with short hair, his face fresh, the way he'd looked before he even signed up, like a photo taken before the war, except that it looked completely modern. 

> **YOU OWE ME A BEER.**  Sam had written underneath the picture.

All thoughts of anything save Bucky fled him, his heart suddenly thumping in his chest.

'Excuse me,' he said to Wanda, hurriedly, like a deer in the headlights as he hurriedly stepped away from her and frantically texted back.

> _Where's that from?_ he texted back.
> 
> ********Brooklyn Hospital Center. Photo recent. Sent in by a Doc.**  
>  Patient name James Brookes.   
>  **

Steve wanted to write back sceptically, that it made no sense for him to be in such a place under an assumed name. Why would the Winter Soldier go to a hospital in Brooklyn? From what little Steve had learned from the incomplete snippets of information in the file Natasha had procured via contacts in Kiev, it seemed more likely that he would have sought out a bunker or safe house, if he hadn't gone back to Hydra that is.

Yet the photo was Bucky, right down to the freckle on his neck that Steve never missed off of a portrait. There was no denying that. It was incredibly eerie. 

> ******Actually 2nd time this lead has come in. Someone else claimed he was there. Seemed off so dismissed lead until photo was sent.  
>  What you think? That your guy?  
>  **
> 
> _We are going right now._

'Sorry,' he said, again. 'Something has come up.'

Wanda nodded, forcing a smile, though she was plainly still rattled. 'Sure.'

'I have to take care of this.' Steve quickly snapped the laptop's lid closed. 

When he turned back to her, Wanda was using her magical powers to put the mugs she'd broken back together again, hands waving in the air. Once reformed, she put them on his desk and smiled with some triumph at managing to control her powers to do that. 'There,' she said. 'All better.'

Steve returned her smile, warmly, though he was already busy putting on his jacket to go out. 

'I'll be back in a little while.'

'You go,' she said.

In his rush to leave, he didn't notice the way her eyes were lingering on the Kiev file on his desk.

*

On the way over to the facility, Steve rested his head against the side of the car window, taking a moment to breathe. Outside it was raining and Sam was the better driver anyway, so he was happy to be a passenger. The coolness of the glass was soothing to his nerves which were, truth be told, hanging by a thread. Not that most people would be able to tell.

Sam could tell. He was a veteran and he'd been through enough to get it, to let Steve work through things himself. 

Steve knew how lucky he was to have made a friend like Sam. Truth be told, the man who came up out of the ice was not the man who'd gone under it. He felt different; shattered somehow, like some essential part of him had been disconnected. It was part and parcel of being a man from a whole other time, he guessed. The whole world had simply changed around him in the blink of an eye. It was hard to make friends with anyone when he felt like a ghost walking around and Sam Wilson was a life line that he wasn't even sure he deserved.

The soft hum of the car made him almost drift off to that strange cold place he spent most of his nights, dim and distant but still enough to chill his bones, no matter the weather, no matter how much he turned up the heating or layered up. Fortunately, the car pulled up and came to a stop before it claimed him completely. There had been no peace in sleep for him since the day he was woken from the ice he had frozen alive inside; only a deep sense of unease and emptiness ever awaited him on waking up now.

The Brooklyn Hospital Center stood on a site that he was certain used to be a tenement block, not actually that far over from the apartment he and Bucky had shared for a while prior to the war. Whatever building had been there in his day was long gone. In its place was something more modern and institutional, though weather-worn enough to look well established. 

Sam kindly did a lot of the work in terms of figuring out where they needed to go and speaking to people in the hospital corridors to get directions. The man who'd got in touch with him was apparently one of the Specialists with an office in the mental disorders outpatient wing, and the moment he came to meet them, Steve felt immediately on edge at the way he ushered them into his office and started by asking after a reward.

'A... reward?' Sam repeated.

'If he is, as he appears, this notorious assassin of legend, it does not seem unreasonable that a reward for information might be tacitly offered, no?' the doctor asked, smiling like a rat.

'How about we start with the information part,' Steve replied through gritted teeth.

The squirrelly-faced man, Dr Lance Szimon according to his nametag, took a moment to clean his glasses lens using his shirt. 'Of course Mr Brookes insists he is not this Winter Soldier, your former Sergeant in the war, if reports are accurate? Yet his records show that he was first hospitalised the very day after you sank those helicarriers all over Washington DC, Captain.' Szimon paused, dramatically, like an orator waiting for applause. 'Coincidence?'

'Let's start at the beginning,' Sam interjected.

'Well there is the question of patient confidentiality...'

'It's a little late for that, isn't it?' Steve couldn't help the hostility in his voice; the whole situation felt off and he was itching under his skin, the grey cloud of approaching disappointment sinking fast around him.

Dr Szimon looked afronted at that. 'Mr Brookes consented to my reaching out to you. He is getting somewhat tired of the attention, I believe. Wishes to clear the matter up constructively.'

Sam gave Steve a pointed look before turning back to the doctor. 'Thank you,' he said, just a little too forcefully. 'Mind if I ask what he's in for?'

'You make it sound like a jail,' the Doctor observed. 'No no no, we are largely an Outpatient facility. Mr Brookes was referred here after a particularly injurious bout of somnabulism put him in Intensive Care for a week.'

'Sleepwalking,' Steve clarified, to no one in particular.

'Precisely. A particularly interesting case in fact. I won't bore you with the details, but one of the more interesting facets of it is his multilingualism. While in his sleeping state, he has been observed speaking a number of languages, but you will be interested to know that chiefly amongst them is Russian. All this despite James Brookes claiming to have rarely left the State, letalone the country.' Dr Szimon leaned back in his chair, wearing an infuriating half smile. 'Not conclusive at all. Interesting though.'

'I'm guessing he came here with medical insurance?' Sam asked.

'Naturally.'

'You said he was referred, so there are medical records too right?'

The Doctor nodded. 'According to our records, James Johnson Brookes was born in 1984. He was a ward of the state, left on the steps of Brooklyn Orphanage just a few days old. The mother was never traced. He was there for a year before being adopted by the late Margaret and Timothy Brookes. He went to college on a scholarship in Indiana but dropped out and came back to New York. Works in the construction industry now. His medical fees are being paid for through a fund set up by his parents before their death about five years ago. It all seems highly plausible and straightforward.'

'But you think he's not who he says he is,' Sam said, pushing a little. 

'Well, the resemblance. You have to admit, it's quite astonishing. That recent documentary on Sergeant James Barnes, your erstwhile sidekick Captain,' he said, completely missing the way his nonchalance made Steve bristle, 'And the evidence of his being this Winter Soldier who tore up Washington downtown was just released on Netflix. A nurse brought it to my attention. Honestly, my jaw dropped when I saw it. All of the staff here went into a flurry. We matched the dates up and, well, it fits...'

'So you called us.'

'No. First, I contacted the authorities.'

A dead silence followed his words, the doctor clearly waiting for them to ask him more, Sam and Steve tensing up.

'Is he here?' Steve asked, hoarsely, the lump in his throat consuming him. He had to know if he'd missed his shot again.

'Now? No. Oh, not because of that.' Szimon burst his bubble quite cheerfully. 'No, he was questioned and dismissed I believe. He'll come in after work, as he does every evening. We will take measures to secure him overnight as always, keep him out of harm's way.'

'So he's still coming back, even after you clocked him in?' Sam asked, incredulously.

Szimon shrugged. 'There are no other options, given his unique disorder. Now, there may be a window of time to speak with him around six pm, should you wish to come back?'

Without saying another word, Steve gave the Doctor a curt nod and walked out. He could hear Sam making some excuses behind him but he didn't slow down; he needed to get out, to breathe. 

Sam found him out by the car, leaning against some railings, examining the photo they'd been sent on his phone. He was looking for something, anything, that might suggest it was merely a lookalike, maybe even a descendent from some errant branch of the Barnes family tree. 

He was maddeningly perfect. The neck freckle, the ever so slightly more pointed tip of his right ear, the tiny orange flecks in his eyes that you'd never notice unless you'd stared at them for too long, too often. Even the colour of his hair, though cut in a messy modern style, was exactly right. It was an admissions headshot, so there was no way to check anything else about him, but the more Steve looked the more something inside him lurched, as there was a long thread attached to his core and it was tugging him back in time. _Bucky, his best friend, his first love, another lifetime..._

'Looks like we've got a few hours to kill. There's a coffee place down the road? I think it's stopped raining, finally.' Sam offered, coaxing him back into the present.

'Actually... do you mind if... I think I need to take a walk and then come back fresh.' Steve felt awful asking, but he really didn't think he could bear any idle chatter. Not with his skin crawling the way it was. 

Sam pursed his lips and gave his signature side smile. 'Yeah alright. I get it. Before I let you off the hook, I gotta know; are you gonna be alright if it turns out he's not your boy?'

Steve vaguely shrugged and put on a passable smile. 'I'm always alright, right?'

'Uh huh,' Sam said, making it sound like he was saying the exact opposite. 

'Sam, thank you,' he said, reaching out to his friend before he left. 'You're the best.'

Sam readily agreed and then left him alone to his thoughts, driving away with the promise to come back and pick him up later just as soon as he said the word. Once again, Steve marvelled at how he'd somehow stumbled into making such a good friend. There was no judgement, just support. He hated himself a little for leaning into that warmth of human kindness so fully, though he knew his only real contribution in the other direction had been to completely disrupt Sam's life from day one, putting him in the line of fire on more than one occasion. 

He found himself walking around the old neighbourhood block, wandering back and forth, thinking about the life he'd shed like unwanted skin, never knowing just how much he would come to long to go back. Steve found his way to the local park and sat with the ducks for a while. Idly, he took out the sketchbook and pencil he kept in his jacket pocket and drew an outline of the park's fountain. 

But he soon grew bored. Steve flipped back through his older day out sketches and frowned at what he saw. 

He remembered most of the places he'd drawn, but he didn't remember scratching in crooked-looking crosses on the top of all the buildings and skyscrapers. He didn't remember the church he'd drawn more than once, where the initial weirdly shaped cross belonged on top; not at all. It gave him the creeps, so he put the sketchbook away and gave up on the whole thing. 

If nothing else, it was one more piece of evidence that he was really starting to lose his mind. Steve had held it together pretty well since waking up in the new century, he thought, until Hydra reappeared and the mask fell off the face of the man he'd thought was his enemy and he'd discovered that the world was a sick and terrible place.

That monster they'd made out of the delicate bones and generous soul he'd cherished all his life, it had nearly killed him; shot him to bits and rained down punches like holy fire, like punishment for his part in making him. Yet fundamentally, something of Bucky Barnes still lived inside the Winter Soldier; something that still knew him and saved him.

He knew that the person he'd seen on that helicarrier in the last few moments before he fell - the shocked look that stayed his hand - was his friend.

As to who _this_ man, this James Brookes, new age kid from Brooklyn was, there was only one way to know for sure.

*

The guy was late. Steve fretted about whether the doctor had forgotten to ask, or had asked him to come see him and the man had had a change of heart, nearly driving himself mad with all the possibilities while he waited.

Just after seven, he got a text message from Sam. 

> **Chill man.**

He was considering adding telepathy to Sam's Avengers skillset listing when the door to the interview room opened and James Barnes entered, flanked by an orderly who half carried him over to the chair on the other side of the desk between them. The orderly dropped him into it, unnecessarily, before striding out.

Steve tried not to stare but he couldn't physically help it. For the most part, James was doing his best not to look at him, fiddling instead with his shirt sleeves. 

'I know you're nervous,' Steve blurted out. 'You have good reason to be.'

'Not nervous exactly,' came the response, the exact Bucky-ness of his voice sending an unbidden thrill of excitement through Steve. 'Wary. Of being a disappointment.' Finally, he let his eyes drift up to Steve and there was an odd moment where his eyes widened, breath held in, like he was seeing something unexpected.

'Do you know me?' Steve asked, earnestly.

'You're Steve,' not-Bucky said, quietly, but then shook himself out of whatever it was that had captured him. 'Captain America. I read about you in a museum.' He tried to sound teasing but Steve could hear the nervousness coming through in his voice. 'I uh... thanks for coming. It wasn't my idea but, well, seemed like it had to happen eventually. This ain't the first time I've been told I look like your old war buddy. First time it's got me arrested though.'

'It's more than just looking like him,' Steve said, waving his hand around. 'You... everything about you. You're Bucky.'

'No,' he snapped back, 'I'm not. I'm just a guy. I work a boring job. I try to pay my bills. I have an apartment and a girlfriend, well, _had_  a girlfriend before all of this, though to be fair that wasn't going anywhere. But see-' He put his hands flat out on the table, palms up, and Steve knew what he was saying. _Two hands, no metal, just a guy._ 'I'm sorry, I'm really not him. The first name thing's a coincidence. James was a top ten baby name in 1984, so... yeah. It's just not possible.'

He paused a minute to let it sink in for Steve, tracking the movements he was making closely, seeking the moment of belief setting in.

'Sorry,' he said again, more quietly, more intimately.

Steve looked up at him, not realising he'd zoned out a little there. 'Don't be,' he said. 'You didn't need to talk to me at all.'

Not-Bucky, _James_ , smiled and shrugged. 'What, give up my chance to meet _The_  Captain America?' he joked, but there was something flat about the way he said it. 'Tell you what, this whole thing feels way too formal. Mind if we take this outdoors?'

Naturally Steve was glad to follow him through the corridors and out into a garden area behind the hospital. James picked a bench just off to the side, away from the other patients who were still outside, and lit a cigarette. 

The menthol smell made Steve smile and he had to stop himself from noting that Bucky used to go out of his way to get ahold of the Brown & Williamson Kool label tobacco that hit Brooklyn in the 30s, as he had a real liking for the newly concocted menthol flavour. Since James had made it clear that he didn't welcome comparisons, Steve let it drop unspoken.

'Thing is, there is _something_  weird going on here,' James said, conspiratorially. 'I don't like saying it in there. They hold everything against you in there. But there is _something_ going on.' He took a long drag of his cigarette and then offered the pack to Steve, who declined it. 'I landed in here because I took a nap one afternoon and nearly killed myself sleepwalking across the city. I was... I was fighting the traffic, getting knocked about. Then I dove off the Brooklyn Bridge. I half remember, I thought I was saving someone important to me. Like, I felt all these strange things, as if I was coming out of a fog, and I feel like I saw your face. Except that makes no sense.' James stopped suddenly and looked up, like he was gathering strength, huffing in a deep breath as he did. 'Here's the thing; that whole nightmare for me played out the exact same time you and your brainwashed friend were fighting on that helicarrier in DC, best I can tell. There was no footage, I know, but I read online that you said you fell into the Potomac river at the end. Did... did he jump in after you?'

Steve stared at him, long and hard. 'He jumped in and pulled me out. I didn't tell that part to the media.' He'd told Sam and Natasha of course, but they'd all agreed it would be better not to mention it elsewhere. Just in case Bucky was on the run, memories returning, as it wouldn't be helpful to tip Hydra off that he had perhaps started to wake up from the brainwashing and might need to be brought in by force.

'Shit. I knew it.' James reached back and scratched his fingers along the nape of his neck compulsively, and Steve's stomach lurched; Bucky used to do the exact same thing when he was stressed or anxious. 'Don't get ideas, I'm still not him, but whatever's making me sleepwalk every godamned night, it feels connected. I mean, aliens flew down over New York and tore up the city a few years ago, so anything is possible, right?'

Steve could feel his lungs drawing up tight like he was on the verge of an asthma attack, even though the days when he actually had those were long since gone and it was all just in his mind. 'What do you remember? Specifically, I mean,' he asked, working really hard not to sound like he was pushing too hard.

'Uh, not too much. I never really remember much when I come out of it, but when I woke up in ICU I just had this image stuck in my mind.'

'Image?'

'You, uh... your face, all beaten up, and I just remember feeling horrified or something. All electric under my skin. My head hurt a lot. Then you were gone but everything inside me was screaming to jump, because you were falling and I had to save you. I mean, it's a blur, but that's what I remember.'

'Beaten up how?' Steve asked, getting more excited. 'Like, try and remember exactly what you saw.'

James frowned, staring off into the distance like he was fighting to recall, then he put a hand to his right cheekbone. 'You were in your uniform but no helmet. Uh, this eye was swollen. I think your lip was bust? You were half hanging off the edge of something, and it felt like everything was kind of spinning or breaking up around us. That's... that's the image I have.' He turned to Steve, warily searching his face for answers. 'I'm guessing that means something to you, since you're looking at me like you've seen a ghost.'

Steve realised the breath he hadn't realised he was holding in. 'That's exactly what happened.'

That made James curse under his breath. 'Damn.'

'You said you don't usually remember much after you wake up from sleepwalking. So you do remember something?' 

James finished his cigarette and flicked the butt aside. 'It's a jumble to be honest. I don't remember much, but they tell me I get real aggressive. They've taken to strapping me down at night but sometimes I do break free. They say I fight and kick and yell, say the same thing over and over in languages I don't know, going round and round the room tearing it up. I've landed myself back in hospital twice when they couldn't control me and I got out. It's crazy. When I do finally wake up, I just remember... cold. Freezing fucking cold. And my muscles are all twitchy like I've been electrocuted or something.'

'What is it you keep repeating over and over?'

'It doesn't make any sense.'

Steve waited for him to say it, expression making it clear that he wanted to know, no matter how crazy it sounded. 

'Silent Hill.'

'Silent... Hill?'

James shrugged. 'Mean anything to you?'

Steve had to admit it didn't, but he was damned well going to do everything he could to find out what that meant.

It wasn't long before James made some excuses to head inside and Steve decided to leave him be for now, leaving behind his cellphone number just in case. Though James Brookes looked like Bucky and even seemed to have a memory that suggested he could really be him, Steve could sense on some level that this man wasn't the person he was searching for. It was like seeing a photo of Bucky; the look was correct but that tingle of connection they'd always shared was just not there. Even when Bucky hadn't known who he was that first time they fought, in the moments when the mask finally fell away, Steve had known without a shadow of a doubt that this was the man he'd loved for a lifetime, in every way it was possible to love another person, and lost in the cruellest way possible. The connection had fired up, despite everything, and he'd literally frozen to the spot in shock because of it. 

Thus far James felt like a friendly acquaintance, nothing more.

He decided not to call Sam and instead rode the subway back to the Avengers Tower to save his friend the trouble of driving back across town. It was late and the sun was setting over the horizon by the time he got back. 

Once inside, he checked his phone and found a text from Sam waiting. 

> **Verdict?**
> 
> _I don't think it's him but there is something strange going on._  
>  _Need to investigate further._
> 
> **Need a ride? No wings, just wheels.**
> 
> _Haha. No, I'm back already. Catch up over breakfast tomorrow._

Steve lay down on his bed for a little while, head spinning, trying to reconcile everything and put it into some logical order. Thing was, he was no stranger to... strangeness. Beyond being friends with a god from another planet, an immortal flying robot with an infinity stone in its forehead, a girl with literal magic at her fingertips, back in the day he'd been fully versed on the supernatural doctrine of Hydra. Dr Erskine had told him all about it and had been very clear that it wasn't idle belief, there was a lot of factual evidence. Steve had never really known what to make of it, until he witnessed the Red Skull get sucked into an ancient artefact and blown out into the universe, never to be seen again. Whether it was magic or just some kind of advanced science, he definitely believed in it. So on that basis, he was feeling like he had to be open minded about James Brookes and to believe what he was saying; that he was not _his_  Bucky Barnes but he was some form of _a_  Bucky Barnes potentially, experiencing something out of the ordinary that was in some way linked to the person he was looking for.

'Friday?' he asked, shattering the silence of his quarters.

'Good evening, Captain Rogers,' the Irish-sounding user interface computer system responded, chirpily. 

'Would you mind doing some research for me?'

'Certainly Captain. What would you like to know?'

'Please pull up everything you can find on "Silent Hill".'

'As pertains the Winter Soldier?' she asked, merrily.

That connection took him off guard. 'The Winter Soldier?'

'Forgive me, Captain. You're the second person to make this request today. I thought you might be seeking the same information.'

That really shook him to core and he sat bolt upright on his bed. 'Wait, someone else asked you to search for that term? Today?'

'Yes, Captain.' 

'Who?'

'Miss Maximoff.'

'Wanda?' he spluttered. 'Uh... okay. What did you find?'

'The name Silent Hill has no meaningful reference in Western resources. However, it is mentioned several times in Russian language travel journals dating back to the 1960s and also online on geospecific Russian sites and forums up to the present day,' Friday informed him, still sounding unreasonably cheerful. 'It is the translation of a nickname given to a remote town in Siberia which was controversially cleared of civilians and subsequently used as a test site for the Russian military during the Second World War. Rumours of continued activity in the town continued through to September 8th, 1984, when some form of disaster occurred which cut off all road access. One road was rebuilt but the area has been plagued by stories of strange occurrences ever since. People who visit the abandoned town report losing time, seeing shadowy figures, witnessing odd behaviour in animals, being plagued by nightmares or illness subsequently, and similar odd happenings.'

Steve had started pacing, trying to put everything together in his mind as he did and completely failing. 'Okay, so what did she want to know about Silent Hill specifically?'

'Miss Maximoff appeared to know the general detail already. She instead asked for the information I just provided to be crosschecked with references to the Winter Soldier. My search yielded one additional piece of information. One of the Hydra files which were released online by Agent Romanoff mentions an incident in a Siberian Hydra base on September 8th, 1984. The information is partial but implies a final phase of experimentation on the Winter Soldier was carried out, resulting in the loss of around sixty Hydra scientists and soldiers, although overall the experiment was noted as a successful one. The date and general location implies possible correlation.'

It made Steve's guts churn hearing those words. Most of what he'd learned about Bucky's time with Hydra felt somewhat abstract, with the Kiev file given to him and the tidbits that had appeared online all very sparse and incomplete. Hearing of a specific round of experimentation put dark images into his mind that he knew would take a while to shake.

'Miss Maximoff also asked for details on the location and current local transport infrastructure,' Friday added.

That shook him out of his reverie. 'Where is she now?'

'She is in her room. Master Vision is with her.'

Steve headed straight there.

He barely stopped to knock, but on entering was alarmed to see that she appeared to packing items into a bag on her bed. 

'Ah, Captain Rogers,' Vision said, by way of greeting. 'Most fortunate timing. Miss Maximoff and I were discussing the need for...'

'Vision,' she interrupted him, eyes downcast. 'Don't.'

'Wanda, what's going on?' Steve asked, trying very hard to sound relaxed and not really pulling it off at all. He noticed that her jaw was clenched, her arms moving up to cross over her torso defensively. 'Please,' he said, 'Talk to me. What is all this?'

'It's... it's difficult to speak about.'

Steve resolutely took a seat, signalling the fact that he wasn't leaving until this conversation was had. 'Silent Hill,' he said, with a hint of a challenge.

Wanda blinked and stared at him in surprise. 'What do you know of it?' she asked, quietly.

'Only the basics. I don't know why you were searching for information about it in relation to Bucky.'

A long silence filled the awkward space between them. Eventually, it was filled by Vision speaking up finally. 'If I may...' he began.

'No, Vision,' Wanda snapped. 'It's fine. I think I'd like to explain it to Steve myself.' 

It took a moment for him to realise that her expression was telling him to leave, but when he did, he obliged. Just as they had all agreed during the earliest and most awkward days of his creation, he made a point of leaving via the door, closing it behind himself.

Wanda took a moment to swipe her sleeve at the corner of her eyes. 'Sorry. I don't know what I'm doing.'

'You were planning to go to Silent Hill,' he said, not as a question, as an uncomfortable statement.

'I don't know. Maybe. I thought I might find your friend there, bring him back to you... but that place is a part of my past that I don't care to remember, much less speak of.'

'Wanda,' Steve said, moving from the chair to the edge of the bed, encouraging her to sit beside him, 'There is nothing you could say that would upset me or change my opinion of you.'

'I know,' she said, quietly, like she hadn't really known that. 'I didn't make the connection until I saw you watching that video today. You must believe me.'

'Connection?'

'I met him. Your friend. When I submitted myself to Hydra, in the process of becoming what I eventually became.' She illustrated this with a vague wave of her hand, producing a wisp of red magic in the air. 'Phase One. We were all taken to Siberia.'

'To Silent Hill?'

She nodded. 'They boasted of the magical power that they had tapped into in that place. To prove it, they summoned a man they called their ghost. It is a blur now, my head was pounding so hard the whole time as the power there affected me, but I do remember him vividly. He looked exactly as he did in that video, with the mask and the long hair and that metal arm. He appeared somehow, in a storm. I'll never forget those eyes; so cold and empty. The Hydra officer picked someone at random and he tore that man apart with his bare hands, and then did the same to a few others who attacked him as a result. There was blood everywhere. I was so desperate to stop Pietro from pulling forward and going after him too, I saw red. Not anger, I mean, the power there suddenly channelled through me and... I don't know quite what happened after that but I was never the same again. That place, it changed everything for me and my brother. The ghost haunted us. We were all trapped in Silent Hill for days, unable to leave, picked off one by one. Only a handful of volunteers survived Phase One.' Wanda took a long, cleansing breath. 'I'm sorry, I... I find it difficult to speak of Hydra. My affiliation with them was for such selfish ends.'

'It does no good to think that way. You did what you thought was best for your country. Just like I did.'

'I read that file you keep in your drawer,' she admitted, sadly. 'Your friend had no such choice. I feel sick knowing that. I feel... I must help him, if he can be helped.'

Steve put a hand on her arm and squeezed, trying to comfort her and to show that he appreciated the sentiment. He sighed at the crazy situation. 'I met a man today, in the Brooklyn Hospital Center. He looks exactly like Bucky, I mean _exactly_. But he isn't him, I don't think. Except he's having nightmares; sleepwalking. Wanda, I know you said you would never use your powers to go into someone's mind again but if it might help him...'

'I'll do it,' she said, firmly and without any hint of doubt. 'With his permission.'

Some general plans were made to go together to see James the next day and then Steve turned in early, back into the cold embrace of the emptiness that took him in whenever he slept. Despite everything, he went more or less straight under.

Normally he slept through until morning and didn't remember any of his dreams, so it was always like coming out of a cold void, but he woke that morning with an odd impression of something disturbing. Steve vaguely recalled half waking in the night and feeling a presence in his room. He had searched it out and caught sight of a figure in the corner, slender and fairly short. Not quite the stature of a child but definitely below average height. Yet for some reason, he hadn't been able to move or say anything and he'd more or less stared just at it until it chuckled, revealing a male voice, and whispered, 'We're waiting for you. Come soon.' Then it made a 'Shhh,' sound at him and somehow he'd passed back out.

Obviously, there was no one there in the light of day. Only the unsettled feelings that came with not knowing if it had been real or imagined, even though all sense and logic told him it was just a bad dream.

He went and had breakfast with Sam, filling him in on everything he'd learned so far. Naturally, he left out the part about thinking someone was in his room in the night. Sam was weirded out by it all enough without that part. 

After eating, he tried to call Dr Szimon but only got his assistant. After leaving a message, he put in a call to Brooklyn Orphanage and talked them into letting them pay an official visit, which really wasn't very hard. They hit the gym together for a while to pass the time and then put on their uniforms to go see the kids. 

It suited Steve to keep it lowkey, with no media presence; just an enjoyable time playing ball with the orphans, Sam carrying a lucky few across the garden area to retrieve lost balls using his wings. They both enjoyed doing visits like that a lot so it was no hardship, but naturally Steve had an ulterior motive and afterwards he was able to sweet talk the administrator into letting him see their file on James Doe, later renamed James Johnson Brookes.

An old fashioned establishment, they were still storing paper files for older adoptions in a filing cabinet in a back room. Sam and Steve were given permission to take a look and see if they could find anything, which they did within about twenty minutes.

They were able to see a kodak photo of James as a tiny baby, nestled in a carry basket, a folded note on red paper stuck between the blanket and its edge. The file stated that the note left didn't give any details as to his birth, it was just a drawing of a star, which honestly gave Steve the creeps. There were a few papers related to the adoption and some follow up notes stating that the placement was successful, with two more photos attached; James as a cheeky-faced toddler, and James aged around five or so, grinning, cuddled between the arms of his two gentle looking parents. 

It was obviously him and obviously all authentic. Oddly enough, that seemed to surprise Sam more than it did Steve. Sam was still of the opinion that looks don't lie and it had to be him, until he saw all of the evidence to the contrary. Steve, meanwhile, already knew on some deeper level that it wasn't Bucky, so all the file did was confirm it once and for all in a finite way.

'Descendent. He's got to be. Some strong genetics going down the line.' That was Sam's verdict, making sense even where there was none, as he usually did. 'Or he could be a clone.'

Steve didn't offer up a theory. He stayed silent on the matter as they returned to the tower to get changed and eat. Although Wanda joined them for some food, as Vision, Tony and Rhodes were there too, they didn't discuss James Brookes or Silent Hill by mutual silent pact. They let Tony talk himself out about his projects instead.

After eating, Steve tried to call Dr Szimon again and finally got through to him. 

'Hi again, this is Steve Rogers. Would it be possible for me to stop by again around the same time this evening to speak with James Brookes?' 

'Captain. I'm sorry, that won't be possible.'

'Oh. It won't?' he asked with some surprise. 

'I'm afraid my patient will not be here. Unfortunately, Mr Brookes had a severe episode last night. He broke out and managed to injure himself. He's presently recuperating in Brooklyn General and we're not expecting him until tomorrow at least.'

Steve had grabbed his coat before even hanging up.

*

Although Sam and Wanda both insisted on going with him to the hospital, they were content to hold on down the hallway in the waiting area once they had located him. It was outside of visiting hours but, once again, being Captain America had its perks. He was able to get the nurses to turn a blind eye and let them through.

Steve hung outside of the hospital room for a while, just looking through the square window into James' room. Though the patient had his head turned aside in the bed and the lighting was dim, his enhanced hearing picked up the quiet sound of gentle sobbing. He could immediately see that he was beat up, with a big bandage on his head and one arm in a sling.

When he did finally knock, he saw him quickly moving to wipe his face with his remaining hand and compose himself. Steve hung back just long enough to enter the room and pretend not to have seen anything at all.

'Hey,' he said. 

'Oh. Hi.'

'I heard you'd been hurt.' Fortunately, the second bed in James' room was unoccupied, so he was able to perch there and look more casual than he would have taking a seat right next to the bed.

James rolled his eyes. 'Yeah,' he said, with just the hint of a lip wobble barely held in. 'Looks that way.'

'Are you okay?'

'I uh...' he cleared his throat, hard, 'I took a roll over a car, apparently. Broke my arm and smacked my head on the road. They're keeping me in for the concussion but it's fine. I'll be out tomorrow. Just as well since I just lost my job.' James sounded angry, worn out and yet intensely vulnerable at the same time. 

'Oh. I'm sorry.'

'It's not like I really liked my job, I just... could do with keeping my medical insurance right now.' James laughed bitterly.

'Well, I might have good news,' Steve said, too quickly, too lightly. 'Maybe. Possibly. It really depends on you and what you'd like to do, but I got a lead on what this "Silent Hill" is. Or rather, where.'

'You did?'

'We have resources.'

'Right. The Avengers. Of course. Beats Google search.'

Steve was trying hard to look and sound positive and hopeful, even though it felt out of place against the sombre mood in the room. 'Turns out, one of us has been there. Wanda.' He paused to allow James to react, but all he got was a hard stare of concentration on his words. 'It's a test site in Russia, dating back to the Second World War. It still exists today, though it's hard to get to as most of the roads are cut off.'

'It's where they kept him,' James said, flatly.

'We think so.' Steve spoke slowly and uncertainly, not sure what to make of the certainty of his statement. 'At least for a time. Wanda believes she saw him there once.'

The patient nodded, staring off out of the window, frowning. The silence which followed felt extremely thick and uncomfortable.

'We talked about it and she thinks she might be able to help you.'

'Help me?' James asked, turning his head back to him, expression sceptical.

'Her powers, she can tease out memories and sort of unravel what's going on in there. She has offered to try; might be able to figure out why you're sleepwalking... why you know the things you know.' Steve was careful to avoid using the words that were really going through his mind.  _How you're Bucky even though you're not._  'It's completely your call.'  
  
The serious looks James was giving him finally melted away and he actually smiled a little, shaking his head like he couldn't believe the predicament he had somehow landed in. 'Yeah. Sure. What have I got to lose, right? Though... not to sound ungrateful but are you sure she's, well... I'm not going to get my brains scrambled am I?'

'No more so than they already are,' Steve fired back without thinking, so drawn into that face he momentarily forgot who he was speaking to. 'Oh, what I mean is...'

'You're probably right,' James laughed, letting him off the hook with a dashing grin. 'You know, I like you more like this,' he added.

It was awful, the way a few teasing words in that voice could completely turn Steve's insides to mush, even after all this time. He wanted to respond, and sound smart too, but he was too busy fighting off the flush across his cheeks to speak. 

He headed back to the waiting area to see Sam and Wanda.

Sam, of course, was at ease but Wanda was pale, uncertain, not sure where to put herself in the room. She had pulled her sleeves down over her hands and was needling the ends apart with her nervous fingers, painted black nails peeking in and out of sight. 

When Steve told her that she was cleared to go, she nodded and they headed down the corridor together. But she stopped them at the door and asked to go in alone. Given how she'd made such a point of apologising for going into Steve's mind once before, when she was being manipulated by Ultron, and sworn off using that aspect of her extensive powers, he guessed there was some residual embarrassment factoring in. 

He and Sam stayed outside the door like a couple of bouncers, not actually looking through the square window in the door but able to check in periodically.

For a little while, all was quiet. 

Steve should have known that it wouldn't last long.


	2. Chapter Two

 

**Chapter Two**

 

When James decided to walk out of the hospital early instead of staying overnight like he was supposed to, Steve really should have stopped him. When James asked him to drive him home, then made him stay for a coffee, he really should have said no. And when James asked him to stay and watch him overnight, in case he went wandering, Steve really shouldn't have agreed. 

Thing was, he was feeling adrift and in need of someone there himself. Wanda... it was his fault. He should have predicted what happened; known it was a bad idea all along. That ear piercing scream she'd made, all the windows shattering, before she slumped, it kept coming back to him and echoing through his mind. When he'd run in, she'd already hit the floor, empty, staring into nothing, alive but only just.

Seeing the medical staff take her away, machines getting hooked up, everything frantic, it had shaken him to the core.

That was not what was supposed to happen. It made no sense.

Sam was stunned and James was horrified. Then his wingman flipped into interrogation, demanding answers from James, frustrated with being unable to do anything and taking it out on him. But all James could say was, 'I can't remember... I'm so sorry... I don't know...', clutching at the sheets on his bed, clearly overwhelmed and upset.

Somehow it had all led Steve to the strange moment, the two of them alone on the couch his quiet apartment, when he realised James was sidling up close to him, coffee in hand, and leaning in far closer than he should be; the even stranger moment when he didn't pull back, but let his eyes slide closed, letting James close the gap and press his lips to Steve's.

He held completely still, fighting hard not to do anything, gripped in an odd moment of terror. 

'M'sorry,' James said when he pulled back, ducked his head. 'It's just been a while. Looking at you... I feel safe. I just... Sorry. That was stupid.'

'Don't be. It's um...'

'You and your pal weren't like that?'

The question made Steve wince. 'Yes and no,' he mumbled, hot across the cheeks. 'We never... I mean, Bucky took his liberties.' A lot of silly fumbles, teasing and empty promises, that was all they'd had really. It was just too dangerous for them to do anything more than that, even though Steve couldn't ever hide how he was all lit up inside for his friend, and Bucky couldn't ever pretend to be anything other than pleased as punch at that fact. 'It was a different time.'

James smiled, softly, the bruising on his face from his latest accident wiped out by the dim lighting and punctuated by the odd flash of light from the headlights of cars going by along the road outside. 'Well, let me be the first to welcome to the 21st century, Cap,' he said, and kissed him again, going in harder.

This time, Steve pushed him away after only a second or two. 'I'm sorry, it's not... It wouldn't be right.'

For a moment, James looked like he was considering arguing. Then he pursed his lips and acquiesced, backing off. 'Sure.'

Before Steve couldn't explain about how he'd only be thinking of Bucky and how it wasn't right, what with James still concussed as well, James stood up and nodded over to the clock on the wall. 'It's getting real late. I really should turn in. Been a while since I got to sleep in my own bed actually. I've missed it.'

'I'll take the couch,' Steve said, too quickly. 

James seemed to be chuckling to himself as he left the room. He returned with a pile of blankets and a pillow balanced on his good arm. 'Bathroom's over there on the left. My room's just over there. I'll leave my door open. If I try to walk out or do anything weird, please, stop me. Any way you have to, okay?' He lingered, like he wanted to say or do something else, before finally adding, 'Good night,' and scurrying to his bedroom.

Steve considered texting Sam but he knew his friend wouldn't exactly approve of him doing what he was doing. Not after what happened to Wanda. Sam was getting a weird vibe from James and had said right out that something didn't add up. Admitting he'd not only taken James home but volunteered to stay over would not go down well. So instead he went to the bathroom to relieve himself and chew on some toothpaste in place of having a toothbrush handy. He then took off his boots and belt and bedded down on the thankfully spacious enough couch.

As promised, James had left his bedroom door open and, despite the darkness, Steve could see the end of the bed across in the room, with one foot hanging off the edge from under the covers. It was confusing, seeing James there in bed and feeling a pull to him, completely different to the magnetic snap that always used to draw him to Bucky Barnes and hold him tightly, yet not insubstantial in its own right. 

The whole thing was just tiring and thinking about Wanda just lit the fire and made it all hurt too much. Even though he knew Sam had made the call to Tony to make sure the very best doctors that money could buy would be sent to help her, Steve knew instinctively somehow that she wasn't going to wake up on her own. Just as he knew James wasn't Bucky, it was something like a secondary sense of knowingness that he couldn't possibly explain.

Though he hadn't intended to, somewhere between his thoughts of both of them, Steve fell asleep and was out like a light until morning. He woke with a gasp and snapped up on the couch, surprised and alarmed that he'd been so dead to the world. 

His head was pounding in a way that he had rarely experienced since Dr Erskine's serum had been pumped through his veins. The first thing he did was look into James' room across the way and he was relieved to see a foot still hanging off the edge of the bed. He didn't appear to have moved much at all, thankfully. So if nothing else, Steve hadn't slept through a sleepwalking episode and failed him.

Steve lightly padded into the bathroom to pee and then looked at himself in the mirror. The oddest thought came over him.  _I woke up,_  he thought, frowning at his reflection, remembering being on the couch asleep and waking up in the night, sort of. He'd heard... moans? Yes, moans, and he remembered, with a quiet dawning sense of horror, standing at the threshold to the bedroom, watching two writhing bodies on the bed, hazily illuminated by the halo from street lamps bleeding through the window from outside; James on his knees in a tangle of bedsheets, his strong arms wrapped around the smaller body in front of him, in the same position, face tucked down into his neck, both moving together and breathing together, undulating in a passionate rhythm.

The other person, it had been him. Not him as he was now, it was who he used to be; Steve Rogers, a slender, stunted thing, his bony chest on display, his too-thin arms curled up and back around James' head, everything gangly and out of proportion. 

Steve stared hard at his far bulkier reflection, not breathing, remembering how that smaller version of himself had slowly turned his head and smiled at him, kind of mockingly, and then... nothing else. There was just the void of his normal sleep after that.

He was paralysed in the memory of it. It had to have been a weird dream, obviously, brought on by the way James had pursued him the night before, but that vision of  _himself and Bucky_ , making love the way he'd idly imagined they might have done when they'd been young, it was disturbingly vivid. In fact, he had to adjust himself in his boxers and fight his body not to react. 

But then suddenly the entire bathroom seemed to shake, a deafening scream bursting out of nowhere.  _Wanda!_  He could see her in the mirror suddenly, like she was on the other side of a pane of glass, behind a snowy film, banging on it with her fists like she was trying to break free, like she was terrified, glancing back over her shoulder and yelling silently at him. 

'Wanda!' he yelled and punched at the glass, trying to help, desperate to break through and save her, all thought of anything else gone. But he didn't break through; it merely shattered and fell, and there was nothing behind it but the wall.

James came running in, pale, hair a mess, and stood at the threshold panting. 'What the hell?' he yelled, and then rushed over to Steve, stopping when he saw the glass on the floor to avoid cutting his feet up.

'Did... did you hear that?' 

'That scream? Jesus Christ it scared me half to death,' James confirmed. 'Was that you?'

Steve shook his head. 'Wanda. I saw her! She was trapped... scared... I don't know. It came out of nowhere. You really heard it too?'

James nodded looked down at the floor like he could burn a hole in it. 

'What the hell is going on?' Steve demanded, to no one in particular.

'I...' James said, then sighed. 'I think we should talk... and fuck, take care of your hands.'

That was when Steve realised he was bleeding, both knuckles cut up by the broken glass. He just stared ahead, shellshocked, as James pulled out a first aid kit and guided him out to the kitchen so they could sit at the table while he picked out the glass with his remaining free hand, the broken arm still strapped up against his chest, and pointed Steve towards some bandages.

'I wasn't lying when I told your friend I didn't remember what happened before she passed out.'

'But...?' Steve filled in the obvious next word that was coming.

'But I remember a little. It's a jumble, but she was sort of guiding me. Like hypnosis or something. Except, then she was right next to me, there, in my mind. It was almost physical. I don't remember much except there were snowflakes falling around us but, they looked slow, like time was speeding down. We were on a cracked up road, in the middle of some town, but I don't recall much about it except the buildings were all broken down or closed up. At the end of the road...' James paused, squeezing his eyes tightly, trying hard to remember it. 'Damn, it's on the tip of my brain. I just can't...'

'Hold on.' Steve opened a few kitchen drawers until he found a pen and an empty envelope. He put them down on the table in front of James. 'Draw it.'

James pulled a face but didn't argue. He started with the road, and added two stick-figures, one for him, one with long hair scribbled on for Wanda. He added boxes along the edges, like buildings, and then tracked his pen upwards, finally adding a square filled with graves, and then a big box at the end of that. After some hesitation, he added a double-door at the front of the box, arched at the top, and a big circular window above that. Finally, he added a spire and then, pen shaking as it hovered over the drawing for several long seconds, he attached a crooked cross to the top.

Steve leapt back off his chair like he'd been electrocuted the moment the pen was moved away and he saw what was there. 

'What? What is it?' James asked. 

He rubbed a hand over his face, hard, and then went over to his jacket, which was hanging by the apartment front door. Steve pulled out his drawing pad from the inner pocket, stomped back to the kitchen and dropped the pad down on the table next to James' scribbled-on envelope. 

'What...?'

'Just look,' Steve said, his voice hardly sounding like his own it was so strangled. He slowly sank back down onto the chair as he watched James flick through his sketches, face growing more and more shocked. That wonky cross that looked exactly the same as the one he'd just drawn, it was there, plain as day, attached onto everything Steve had been drawing, on every page. 

Their eyes met like time was standing still. 

'What does this mean?' James whispered.

Steve could only shake his head silently in response. After learning of Bucky's fate, the  _Winter Soldier_ , he'd needed something to keep himself busy so his mind wouldn't run wild thinking about it. Drawing had always been his go-to mind clearing tactic, so naturally he'd got a new drawing pad to keep in his jacket pocket right after that incident, taking a lot of time out just putting pencil to paper without much thought.

It made no sense at all. Just like everything else.

'Silent Hill,' James sighed, finally, with an air of uncomfortable finality. 'It's the only way, isn't it?'

Steve nodded. 'Wanda's gotta be there, somehow. Her magic. Bucky, he might be there too. Why else would I...?' He looked again at the eerie sketchpad on the table and shuddered. 'It's gotta be a message or some kind. We have to find them.'

The expression James' face was one of resignation. 

'It's the only way.'

'I know.'

His quiet response immediately put Steve on edge. He wanted to know what was going on in his mind. If he were Bucky, he'd be able to read him like a book, but James was more closed off. 'What are you thinking?' he asked, finally, for lack of any other means of telling.

'I'm thinking,  _shit, I wish I'd renewed my passport now_.'

That broke the tension, finally, and Steve very nearly laughed. 'I think we can get around that. We have...'

'Resources. Avengers. Right.' James caught him off guard with a bright smile that confused Steve until he realised, it was a smile of sheer relief. 

Distantly, he realised he felt the same way.

Naturally when Steve went to confess the plan, Sam insisted that he was coming too. Though he put up a token protest, truth be told Steve couldn't help feeling grateful to have his wingman there to watch his back as they went into the unknown. There was no one he trusted more to be there with him on a journey he suspected would be hard in ways he couldn't yet imagine, though again he worried at the price of it to his friend.

Thing was, Sam knew how he felt about it. He was too smart not to. 'Damn right it's gonna be dangerous, which is why you need me there to hold you back from doing something crazy,' Sam said, verbally knocking him on the side of the head as usual. 'You may not have much of a self preservation instinct, but you take care of your people, Cap. So I watch your back, you watch mine. Deal?'

Steve agreed, readily.

Whatever happened, he would bring Bucky home. That was the promise he made to himself as he stepped out of Sam's apartment and breathed in the fresh morning air. He would find Wanda, he would protect Sam, but beyond that none of it, not the Avengers, not new New York, not this new life in a new world, none of it mattered to him when it came right down to it. He'd been a ghost, floating along there for far too long. Making that promise, knowing he was on the right path at last, feeling connected to Bucky again somehow, it was like being able to breathe again for the first time in years.

Less that twelve hours later, everything prepared, one passport quietly fast-tracked as a favour to Captain America, they were rising above the bustling city in a quinjet, course set. Despite knowing that Steve wasn't being completely honest about the mission being small, stealthy and not at all interesting, Tony had a lot of things going on in his own life to do with Pepper and the Stark Foundation which made it easy for him to let Steve's obvious lie go. Given Wanda's inexplicable coma and everything he had already probably been told by Friday about the Silent Hill puzzle, he had to have known that it was something a little bigger than the inconspicuous fact finding mission that was claimed as the reason neither he nor Vision, nor Rhodey, were invited along. This meant they at least made it out of New York with some fast transportation without too many probing questions.

Steve and Sam had to touch down at a private airport upstate in order to sneak James on board, since it wouldn't have been possible to get him into the tower unnoticed. They swore Friday to secrecy about him, which she accepted in a way which was almost endearing human; like she was pleased to be in on a secret. She then took over control of the quinjet for them and handled the more difficult aspects of piloting it out of the area without disturbing any commercial planes. 

It was just heading towards midnight when James finally joined the crew, so it wasn't long before they all claimed their bunks for the night and turned in to rest up. Even with the advanced technology at their fingertips, it was going to take a good nine hours to get to the nearest airport to Silent Hill, so sleep would be helpful to pass the time. They also faced a difficult journey by road, across the cold plains and hills after that in order to get to the town itself, meaning sleep was needed to prepare for that challenge as well.

Steve had forgotten, when he brought James on board, that Sam was still wary of him due to what had happened to Wanda. The reception was a little frosty and he could tell that Sam still had some private suspicions that he probably wasn't voicing. James responded with a cocky bravado about it all that didn't really help matters either. So Steve gave James the bottom bunk on the right side of the quinjet and gave Sam the top on the left side, taking the bottom that side himself with the excuse that it would be easier for them both to watch James from there in case he started sleepwalking again.

'I'm hoping maybe that won't happen again,' James said, as he made himself comfortable on his side. 'Maybe confronting this has fixed... whatever it was that was making me act out at night.' He sounded so hopeful that Steve almost believed he had to be right and that things would be fine.

The hand clenched around his throat that woke him up and flung him into the back section was the first clue he had that things weren't fine.

Bleary, he rushed back to stop James from hurting Sam, who he'd lifted up into the air by the neck as well, somehow using his left arm, despite it still being encased in a thick fibreglass cast from the elbow down. 

James threw Sam at him like he was a bowling ball, knocking Steve back and causing them to both land in a pile at the rear of the quinjet. James stared at them with hollow alien eyes and spat something incomprehensible in what sounded like Russian. He then advanced towards them with a ferocious intensity in the way he moved, fists clenched, muttering something over and over under his breath.

The entire atmosphere in the cabin was cold and static, like the temperature had dropped dramatically somehow, their breath ghosting in the air. Steve leapt between James and Sam, shielding his more breakable friend with his body and trying to figure out how to stop James without hurting him.

Friday suddenly said something in Russian which caused him to stop in his tracks.

'What did you say?' Steve asked, carefully.

'I told him to calm himself as we're going to the place he keeps muttering about.'

For a moment, whatever had taken over James seemed placated. But then he let out a pained howl, almost supernatural in how loud it felt, and then he stalked to the cockpit. Tiny jets of blue and white lightning were starting to spark out of him, causing obvious system damage to the delicate machinery. 

'I'm losing navigational control, Captain,' Friday told them, frantically. 'Everything's going haywire.'

Steve ran at him, avoiding the way he tried to punch him down, and suddenly they were fighting hand to hand, matching every blow, so equally matched in skill it was unreal. He knew then exactly who he was fighting. 'Bucky stop!' he yelled. 'Stop! You need to stop!' He punctuated this with an elbow drop to his shoulder that nearly knocked him down. 'Please Bucky,' he said in the resulting pause in action.

'Who the hell is Bucky?' James said, and then lunged at him, hand outstretched as if to make a grab. But he suddenly froze and then started shuddering visibly.

Steve suddenly spotted the taser lines now attached to his chest and followed them back to Sam, who was holding a large square taser with a hard look of concentration.

After ten seconds or so of fighting it, teeth gritted, eyes flashing with rage, James finally fell forward in a dead faint and Steve caught him to lower him down to the floor. 

'My mama always told me to be prepared,' Sam said, sounding a little bit more triumphant about it than Steve liked. 'What? It worked, didn't it?' he said in response to the judging look he was given. 'He'll be fine.'

'Friday, are we okay?' Steve checked.

'I'm rebooting navigational systems to be certain,' she confirmed. 'There was a surge of electromagnetism that may have impaired some functions but hopefully we won't require repairs at home base.'

'Press forward but keep me updated.'

James groaned and his eyelids fluttered, the broken arm curling into his chest protectively. 

Steve carefully pulled away the taser hooks and tossed them aside. 'Help me get him back to the bed,' he said to Sam, hooking his hands under James' armpits. Sam grabbed his feet and together they hauled him over and back onto his bunk. Steve perched next to him, watching him closely, both concerned and fascinated by what he'd just seen. 'Hey,' he said, gently and ignored Sam's pointed look at his fawning tone.

'Hey,' James muttered. 'I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Was I... hit by a truck?'

'No trucks. You were sleepwalking. Sam snapped you out of it.'

'Oh. Okay. Cool.' He sounded sleepy, like someone just waking up, not someone who had just thrown two people across a quinjet and then engaged in precise hand to hand combat in a confined space. 'I didn't _do_  anything did I? God, tell me I didn't.'

'We're fine. Everything's fine. You go back to sleep.' Steve pulled his blanket over him for good measure and let his fingers brush the curl of brunette hair hanging over his forehead back. He knew that that had been Bucky, well the Winter Soldier at least, channelling through somehow. Far from putting him on edge, it made him feel closer to James than ever before. 

Steve ignored Sam's grumbling about being stuck in a confined space with a homicidal sleepwalker and went back to his bunk the moment he saw James had fallen back asleep. He lay back and got butterflies in his stomach thinking of how there could be no doubt any longer that James was a piece of Bucky, if not the whole thing. The experiments carried out by Hydra and the Russians had to have caused some kind of split, he reasoned. After getting to know Wanda and seeing her powers, and watching Vision become a sentient being almost out of thin air, he knew that anything was possible. Why or how, he couldn't fathom, but he knew more than ever that everything coming together like this was deliberate. There were just too many coincidences for it not to be part of some greater plan.

Bucky was pulling everything together and towards him somehow. The drawings, the channelling, this other version of him. Maybe even the way Wanda had fallen through the cracks too, though Steve didn't yet know how she fit into it all. It was aligning.

Naturally, he didn't sleep much more after that. Sam certainly wasn't in the mood to either, but nor did he seem to want to be too close to James either, so he sat in the cockpit silently watching the clouds go by.

Steve stayed where he was, head turned so he could watch James, meditating on that too-youthful face. He looked just as Bucky had the last time Steve saw him before he went off to war, when he'd come home late, cheap whiskey and those menthol cigarettes on his breath, struggled out of the uniform he'd taking out for a spin on the town, kissed Steve on the forehead and then, after a pause, leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. 'Always,' he'd mumbled, lightly, and collapsed in the bed next to his friend to sleep. Steve had stared at him then, face smoothed out in sleep, not sure whether to laugh or cry.

The next time he'd seen him, strapped down on a medical table in some backwater Hydra factory, Bucky had somehow aged far more than their mere year of separation should have allowed for. War took boys and turned them into men too fast. The kid he'd known was gone already and in his place stood a quieter, less carefree man. Neither of them would have been able to return home unchanged, though. It was just the way it had to be. Steve could have lived with that, if it came to it - which it didn't. Then came the Winter Soldier; a Bucky he hardly recognised. Battle worn, hardy, feral, emptied of everything he had known and loved. Almost.

Looking at James while he slept was like looking at a mirror through the haze of time. It was easy to pretend, if only for a few moments, that it had all been a bad dream. All the years of war, just some crazy nightmares and just over there was Bucky, young and content, drooling as he slept off whatever stupid adventure they'd gotten into together.

Even after James woke up, and everything was a bit awkward, he couldn't help looking at him with dewy eyes, starting to see the silhouette outline of Bucky at last. Every now and then Sam would shoot him a very unimpressed look, silently but firmly telling him to knock it off already. Steve resolutely played dumb, even though Sam wasn't even slightly buying it and he knew James had noticed too.

Fortunately, before any arguments could erupt, they finally arrived at their destination and were able to refocus on the mission. Since it wasn't an Avengers gig, Steve and Sam had left their uniforms behind in favour of more subtle, much warmer attire, all purchased and supplied by Friday on Stark's dime, with a few extras for James to wear. 

Almost before he knew it, Steve found himself straightening up the lapels on the blue jacket he had picked out for James, just like he used to when he and Bucky were preparing to head out with the Howlies, a similar beat of attraction passing between them unbidden. James gave him a crooked smile, amused, leaning into the attention a little, but the moment was lost when Sam walked back in from taking a last bathroom break for the road and Steve leapt back, cheeks burning. He avoided looking to see if Sam had noticed or not and switched into Cap mode, passing out orders to get things moving.

There were 260 miles of variable terrain to pass across, on a route out from Tiksi, up to Sklad, then finally out West into the vast nowhere, eventually heading along to the bridge leading over to the one rebuilt road which reportedly still led to Silent Hill according to Friday's research. The car was a rental but it was a 4x4 with low mileage and good GPS, prearranged by Friday, making the drive a lot smoother than it otherwise would have been. 

The trip was largely conducted to the sound of some questionable Russian pop music on the radio. Sam either drove or shotgunned the front seat, swapping with Steve, with James relegated to the back seat section as he wasn't on the insurance paperwork and therefore couldn't drive the car. 

When James asked Sam to move his seat forward, the answer was a resounding 'No,' which kind of set the tone.

They didn't stop often; just for gas, snacks and bathroom breaks. The locals always stared so they moved on fast. 

Only one really tried to talk to them; some old man who grabbed Steve's wrist at the gas pumps and started yelling at him in Russian, gesticulating and pointing at the road in the direction they'd come from. He'd clung on so tight, Steve had to really pull to get his hand back, politely but firmly telling him they had to get back on the road before making a getaway. 

They didn't discuss it, but he was the back marker for things starting to feel tense and strange. The landscape was mostly just a patchwork of white snow and dark brown tundra, and as they rolled into the hills, a thin layer of mist began chasing them along. There were trees, but they were all stripped of leaves, left bare, like black skeleton claws sticking out of the earth. The mist began to turn into a fog and, even with the radio going and the engine running, the absence of any other sound from outside was noticeable. 

When they finally reached the bridge, the fog was a wall of swirling grey. Between that and the way the light was dimming over the horizon, the car's headlamps were barely cutting through, though the faint wisps of snow tumbling down all around them and drifting into the cracks in the road ahead were still catching the light. Steve drove them over the bridge very carefully, a little nervous at the obvious age of it, before picking up the pace a little as they hit the other side. 

For a brief moment, everything seemed to be alright. Then the radio suddenly exploded in noise, static, deafening, crackling so loudly they all instinctively tried to cover their ears. Steve did everything he could to keep the car steady and on the road while Sam bashed his fingers against the buttons of the radio, trying to cut it off. A voice came through screaming and Steve gasped, crying out, 'Wanda!', knowing that voice as she sounded just as she when he'd seen her in the mirror in that bathroom. 'Wanda!'

'Steve look out!' he heard James yell behind him, looking up just in time to see the dark silhouette outline of someone crossing the road right in front of them. He swerved hard to avoid them and the car went into a crazy spin.

It flipped and it felt like they'd hit something in that last second before everything snapped away.

The next thing Steve knew, he was waking up with his head against the steering wheel, everything suddenly silent. Something thick and warm was trickling down the side of his face and he groggily pawed at it with his fingers, finding blood there.

He struggled up, snapping his seatbelt undone as it was constricting his chest, and looked to the passenger side of the car. Relief filled him in a rush when he saw Sam was there and didn't look injured.

'What the hell,' Sam groaned, slowly waking himself up. 

Steve shook his head, blinking hard to clear his vision. 

'Shit man, you're bleeding.'

'I'm okay,' he replied, fast. Steve tried to open the car door but it was jammed, so he gave it an extra strong push to get out, nearly taking it off the hinges. He landed on the road without much finesse and had to fight to straighten himself up to avoid falling over. 

Only then, belatedly, did he realise the back door was already wide open. 'James?' he gasped, and hurried to look inside. 'Shit,' he said on seeing nothing but empty seats. 

'James?' he yelled out, spinning around, looking for him. 'James? James?!'

After a few moments, Sam joined in calling out for him and looking around, but it wasn't long before his voice petered out and he moved off, staring at something separately. 

At first Steve was too buy yelling to notice Sam walking away, until several sharp cries of, 'Steve!', shut him up. Peering through the mist, he ran over to where his friend was stood and fully gasped when he saw what Sam was looking at.

The road behind them was completely gone, like it had fallen into a canyon leaving nothing but a sheer drop into the mist below.

'Well, this is going to be a problem,' Sam commented, dryly. 

 


	3. Chapter Three

 

**Chapter Three**

 

The car engine was dead, which was only helpful in that it had shut down the racket that had been coming out of the radio. Their phones had no signals either. 

There didn't seem to be much they could do except take up walking along the road ahead and see where it led. Since James couldn't have gone back, given the way the road had been completely sheered away into a cliffside edge somehow, staying there wasn't an option to Steve. 

It felt like walking into a trap, but there was simply no way around it. He knew they had to press forward to find him, no matter how anxious he was feeling with every step forward.

A large road sign loomed in the distance, blurred by the fog, but clear enough to make out cyrillic letters forming two words. Neither of them needed to speak the language to know what the two words were. It was plainly obvious where the road was leading.

They didn't get much further before Steve halted, tilting his head in a way that immediately alarmed an already on-edge Sam.

'What?' he asked, going for levity but just sounding plain freaked out.

'Do you hear that?' Steve asked. 

Sam listened for a few moments, straining to hear. All he got was the sound of the wind brushing by, only really notable for the lack of birdsong or animal sounds within it. 'I don't hear anything. What is it?'

Steve took off again at a gentle running pace, chasing something. 

'Seriously, Steve. What are you hearing?' Sam asked as he ran beside him, around the corner bend of the road and into the entrance of the town itself, where the shops and public buildings were evidently abandoned and the detritus of rusted cars, mangled shopping trolleys, crumbling posters and sidewalks with bricks missing painted a certain kind of bleak picture. The gently falling snow wasn't settling much but where it was visible, it looked ashen and grey against the fog.

'Wanda!' Steve suddenly yelled, making Sam jump, running ahead at a speed that made it hard for him to keep up. 

It was hard to see too far ahead, with the fog the way it was, so Sam couldn't be sure of what he was chasing. 

'Steve!' he yelled, falling behind. 'Steve, wait!'

They came to a stop after turning into narrow a side street leading onto a road lined with old tenement blocks and some garages. 

'What...?'

'I saw her,' Steve told him, quickly, looking around frantically. 'I swear I saw her.' They walked down the road for a few moments, both peering through the mist ahead, when Steve took off again. 'There!' he yelled, grabbing onto Sam's arm momentarily to pull him forward as well. 'Wanda! Wait!'

'I didn't see anything,' Sam complained as they ran, full pelt, down the road, him struggling to keep up with the supersoldier out front.

Steve was tracking something with his eyes, chasing like a greyhound catching sight of a rabbit. 'Wait!' he yelled, before stopping at the entrance to some steps going down between an apartment block and a smashed up drugstore, peering down there uncertainly. 

'Seriously,' Sam huffed, 'We're running after shadows'

'She definitely ran down here.' His voice was wavering, clearly unsure. 'You really didn't see her?'

His friend couldn't do anything but shrug, unable to say that he had seen something when he really hadn't.

Steve paused, staring down the steps. Then he sighed, making a decision. 'We have to check... Sam, it was her. I know it.'

'Okay, so it's Wanda. Why is she running?'

'That's the part I don't get. Maybe... maybe she's leading us somewhere,' he said, trying to sound hopeful with that interpretation.

Sam crooked an eyebrow but followed behind Steve as he began down the steps all the same.

They only got about halfway down when a noise rose into the air, huge, like some balloon opening out. It was the sound of an air raid siren blasting out.

'That siren... London... 1943,' Steve gasped.

Suddenly the daylight was dimming, like someone was turning down a dimmer switch.

'Uh, Steve?' Sam began, looking up in alarm, 'What is...'

He didn't manage to finish his sentence before everything plunged into a thick and impenetrable darkness. The siren slowly faded like it was moving away from them and in its place, too close for comfort, there was a writhing, scratchy sound, like maggots wriggling on sandpaper.

Sam went for his phone and switched on its torch feature with a shaking hand, reintroducing some light into the alley. 

The place they were in looked different to how it had just moments before; the walls peeling and crumbling and rusted, like everything was turning to dust and the dust was coming away and floating upwards, against gravity, against all logic. 

'Are you seeing this?' Sam breathed, hardly daring to make a sound.

'Come on,' Steve said, continuing forwards down the steps. 

They went down to the bottom of the steps and along a maze of narrow alleyways, the light not reaching far enough to show them more than a few feet ahead. Then the walls became wire fences, like they were entering enclosures of some kind. 

Steve stopped Sam and whispered, 'I hear footsteps... there... right ahead.' He sped up, even though Sam made it clear he still couldn't hear any damned thing and was, frankly, not happy with the situation they were in all. 

But then he did hear something; not footsteps, but the sound of groaning, just ahead. 'Listen,' he said, and moved his torch in its direction. Cautiously they proceeded forwards, both men jumping when Steve's foot collided with something that rattled out loudly. 

On checking, it turned out to be a birdcage with a dead canary inside it.

'What the f...' Sam started, but then another moan sounded out, much louder. He raised his torch up and the light climbed upwards from the bottom of a tall wire fence, a mesh of barbed wire catching the light.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust enough to see the outline shape of a body within the mesh; a figure in a rubber suit, crucified on the fence, his bowels hanging out from a long cut down the centre of its body. The light hit the rubber helmet it was wearing, showing open, bloodshot eyes moving behind a pair of safety goggles.

Something screamed right behind them and Sam span around, slipping over and dropping his phone as he did. Steve grabbed him and pulled him back as some kind of  _creature_ , reached for him. No, not a creature, but something resembling a zombie, dressed in a tattered military uniform, its horrific face an open wound of a gaping jaw, eyes bulging, skin all diseased and melting.

'Shit!' Sam cried out as its gloved hand brushed by him. 

They turned to run back, away from the creature, but were stopped in their tracks as more of them came into view, hands clawing their way out of the earth beneath them, some wearing similar uniforms, some wearing dirty smocks more befitting of medical patients, but all mutilated almost beyond recognition. 

Steve grabbed a trashcan lid from nearby and started fighting them back, carving a path for them to run down and get away. The sounds they were making were both terrifying and pitiful; more so when cut short by the twang of the metal lid cutting them down. They kept running forward, trying to find a way out of the mesh maze they were caught in, hands grasping onto them from all around and up from under the ground. 

Finally, Steve found a door and managed somehow to prize it open. There were just so many of them, it was hard to get in without being pulled back. He gripped onto Sam hard, yanking him in behind him hard, but a few steps into the building the floor gave way beneath him and Steve had no idea what happened next.

The next thing he knew, the sound of an old radio was playing a familiar old tune that almost made him expect to open his eyes and find himself back home, Bucky smoking and humming along to the music he loved, dreamily.

 _I'll be loving you always,_  
With a love that's true always.  
When the things you've planned  
Need a helping hand,  
I will understand always.  
Always.

The pain in his head and back made sure he coudn't mistake where he was for anywhere pleasant. Light was tumbling in over him through a hole in ceiling; where the floor above had given way and dropped him down into the basement. Steve groaned at the pain of moving, his bones rattling as he tried to get to his feet. 

He was in some sort of storage area, piles of old bowling paraphernalia dumped all around on dusty old shelves. 'Sam?' he yelled up, immediately concerned that he wasn't in his sight. He felt absolutely certain that he hadn't been out long; surely no more than a minute, so it was disconcerting not to see him there. 'Sam??'

Sam had to be knocked out too somewhere he reasoned; probably on the floor above. Steve looked around and, fortunately, there was a ladder propped up in the corner. It wasn't in too bad shape so he was able to put it up against the hole and climb out. 

He found himself in the front section of a diner, not too dissimilar to the sort of places he and Bucky would hang out for a treat occasionally, with some smashed up old bowling lanes at the back and a jukebox that was now merrily playing away, lights flashing, not a care in the world.

The door he'd come through from at the side was wide open but Sam was nowhere to be seen, inside or out. 

Heart beating faster, Steve ignored his aching body and his sore head to leap out over the hole in the partially rotted floor, out into the area behind the alley and shops. Just as before, there were a series of wire fences, now looking a lot less ominous in the daylight, and he was able to retrace his steps far enough to find Sam's phone still there on the muddy ground, cracked and out of battery. 

It hit him then. Sam was  _missing_. 

Missing, just like James. He'd lost him somehow too. Steve almost slid to his knees at the wave of panic which came over him with the realisation of the situation he was in; the people he had put in danger in coming to this place with so little real knowledge of what it was. 

Though the ground looked undisturbed and the place felt quite peaceful in the daylight, despite the wisps of mist and snow, Steve knew what he had seen before when everything was dark. Those men, or whatever they were, the uniforms were period military. A mix to be sure, but he'd definitely seen a familiar symbol on the armband of one of them; the red skull and tentacles of Hydra. Steve held still for a while, breathing deeply, gathering himself. 

This was not the time to fall apart. James, Sam, Wanda,  _Bucky_ , they were all counting on him. Steve pocketed Sam's phone and took off running, retracing his steps with a purposeful stride, back up the steps and all along the empty streets again, not stopping for a moment all the way back to where they had left the car. 

Once there, he went through everything again; checking the engine, the radio, the phones, trying to start them all. When that failed, he went to the trunk and switched to a lighter jacket than the padded one he'd been wearing, so he could put on his shoulder harness as well. This allowed him to carry his shield on his back. Just doing that made him feel calmer and more in control somehow. 

He stuffed some protein bars and bottles of water into his pockets, plus a torch, and then he pushed his phone into the inside pocket alongside his notepad. He stuffed a penknife and a zippo lighter into his pants pockets as he'd run out of space in his jacket. Steve then drank down some water and also took a moment to wipe the encrusted blood off the side of his head, checking to make sure the wound was already healing, which it was. 

His Rogers instinct to fight back against his circumstances, no matter the odds, no matter what they were, had well and truly kicked in. It was the part of him that Bucky had always said he hated the most, except for the times he'd confessed that it was the part he loved the most; that scrappy fighter instinct that never let Steve back down from a fight, even when he was so skinny a stiff breeze could have knocked him down, letalone a punch. 

But this wasn't about Bucky anymore. He'd gotten Wanda and Sam into this mess and that was on him. Whatever sins he had to pay for, they were not meant to be a part of the bargain.

Jaw set in determination, he hurried back along road and ventured back into the desolate ruins and streets of Silent Hill. He treaded the streets carefully, listening, looking at everything he could to find clues. There was something in the air that made everything seem just a little lighter than normal, lending itself to the feel of wandering through a dream. All was oddly calm, just the odd rustle of the wind and creak of a gate to fill the void of sound. 

Steve had no idea where he was going but he was making a mental map as he went; the location of the alleyway he and Sam had gone down, the bowling alley rest stop and the gated courtyards which he discovered, after looking around some more, were actually at the back of what had to be the town's hospital. Beyond that, he found a school with an eerie looking playground to its front, a big old library, an even bigger hotel on the main strip, and all the trappings of a town that had once been a home to hundreds of people. Now that he was properly looking, everything was more familiar to him than he would have expected, but Steve guessed that was because nothing had been rebuilt or updated since the 40s or 50s. Not even the soviet nature of the construction really diminished the illusion.

Despite seeing a lot of places, there was no trace of Sam anywhere. He went all around the courtyards again and checked all of the alleyways around them, but there was nothing. After a while, then the daylight started to dim around the edges, he ended up back at the playground, sitting on the swings out front in defeat.

He closed his eyes, tilted his head back and breathed in and out for a few beats, just trying to centre himself. He could feel the wispy cold as the falling snowflakes touched his cheeks, hear the swell of the wind moving around the abandoned streets, sense the weight of a powerful energy moving underneath his feet.

_Steve..._

He blinked his eyes open. 'Wanda,' he whispered back, as quietly as he had heard her voice. 'I can hear you. Where are you?'

Though he felt like she had said something else, he couldn't understand. She sounded like she was passing through a vacuum, her voice barely making it through. 

'Try again. Please.'

_Run... hide..._

There was a flutter around him and he saw a flash of red, like a dart of light, landing on the broken front doors of the school. 

_Coming... run..._

He decided not to argue and headed over to the school, the hairs of the back of his neck pricking up for some reason. The inside of the school was darker than outside, with windows too high up along the entrance and main corridor down the middle to let much light in. He found a reception area with an office behind it and another little wisp of red light appeared, right over a set of keys hanging on a hook on the wall inside. 

Steve grabbed them and went back to the front doors, pushing them closed and using the largest of the keys to lock them. How he'd known to do that, he didn't closely analyse; it just felt like that was what he needed to do. 

He then headed back in and then down into a side corridor, aimlessly wandering, peering into all of the old classrooms as he passed by them. 'Wanda?' he muttered, 'Now what?'

A pressure suddenly built up and burst near his ear, turning into a distant scream. This was followed by a loud banging sound. He rushed back the way he came and saw that the front doors were being hacked into hard with bats or axes or something. They splintered up and fell apart fairly easily due to their age.

Steve ran and leapt over the reception desk, peering around the side to see what was happening without being in sight. Three figures pushed their way inside through the broken doors, all dressed in dark rubber outfits and goggles, like some sort of old hazmat uniforms. Steve couldn't see their faces but he noted that one of them was carrying a bird in a cage and he remembered the horrific scene he and Sam had come to before; that man, gutted and bleeding, on the fence, a dead canary in a cage nearby.

Who they were, he had no idea, but he knew that Wanda was trying to warn him about them. So he waited for them to pass by in one direction before running down the opposite corridor and dashing into a classroom. He quickly fumbled with the keys, looking for a way to lock the door. The first didn't work, and the moment he pushed in his second guess, he felt a thud as something hit the door on the other side. 

The keys fell to the floor with a clatter and he had no choice but to hold the door closed as they started kicking it on the other side. Then he heard the swing of an axe on the other side and a clang as it sheered through the door but hit his shield. 

Steve rolled forward and got to his feet, grabbing his shield and preparing for a fight. 

The door fell off its hinges and the three figures came inside. They started moving towards him, ominously, like three spectres at the feast, and Steve was more than ready to fight back. 'Who are you?' he growled. 'Where's Sam? Did you take him? Answer me!'

The canary in the cage being held by one of them suddenly let out a shriek and started fluttering wildly around the cage. The three of them froze, looked between each other, and then turned around and started running.

'Hey!' Steve yelled after them. He ran to the threshold of the classroom, looking out as they frantically ran for all they were worth. 'What the hell?'

He heard a sob behind him and span around. There in the corner, finally, was Wanda. Or at least, the ghostly redish outline of her. She sniffled, wiping at her eyes with her sleeves, just like she always did.

'Wanda,' he said, beyond relieved. He went to her eagerly, reaching out to try and touch her, but his hand went right through her. 'I'm so sorry.'

She looked at him, sadly. 'Steve,' she said, her voice still distant and hard to hear, even though she was right there in front of him. 'I want to go home.'

'You will. I promise. We'll find a way out of here somehow.'

The sirens began to whir up once again and they both looked up, stricken. 

'It's happening again,' Steve gasped.

The light streaming through the windows slowly dimmed downwards and plunged them both into pitch black darkness, that same crackling, rustling noise starting up all around them. 

Steve fumbled for the torch he had put into his pocket before and clicked it on. The beam fell onto the wall and Steve watched, fascinated, at the way everything seemed to be peeling away and floating upwards and away, like reality was giving way to the truth of the decay beneath it. 

'What is this?' he asked, and swung around in a circle as he realised that Wanda wasn't there anymore. 

He ventured out into the corridor and discovered that the peeling away was happening there too. The walls were suddenly rusted and slimy, the floors strewn with dirt, the ceilings cracked. He could hear pipes rattling, metal clanging, like the place was alive and breathing almost. 

The sound of frantic yelling drew his attention and he ran back to the entranceway. The three people in rubber suits who had been stalking him were there. Huge bugs that looked like reddish cockroaches were streaming in through the broken door and covering them all over like a plague, making them roll around and writhe to try and get away from them, the bugs eating into their rubber clothing and overwhelming them through sheer volume.

Steve turned back again but the floor was also peeling beneath him, with some tiles cracking and falling away to reveal more wire mesh underneath with icy bursts of cold drifting upwards from below. The bugs were scurrying along the corridor towards him, even along the walls. 

He quickly hit a dead end spun back, looking for another way out that he might have missed, but he stopped in shock as he saw a familiar figure standing at the end of the corridor in a swirl of cold, bugs writhing and moving all around his feet. 

'Bucky!' he yelled, but there was no reaction. The man in the leather straightjacket of a uniform stared at him coldly through dark and tumbling locks. Then without a warning, he drew a knife and threw it, forcing Steve to spin around so that his shield would deflect it. 'Bucky!' he shouted out again as he turned back, trying to find his footing enough to go to him, despite the bugs and the gaps in the floor. 'It's me. It's Steve! You know me!'

Another knife flew through the air at him and this time, Steve felt himself being yanked out of the way somehow. Before he knew it, something was lifting him off his feet and he had been thrown by it, aside and into a storage cupboard off the side. There he found the ghostly outline of Wanda, waving her hands and concentrating to produce her magic, using it to rescue him and then to try and jam the doors closed. 

The bugs were fighting to get inside and to stop her from getting the doors to shut, but with a lot of effort she finally managed it. As there was space for a door bar, but nothing in sight, Steve quickly dropped his shield in where a beam should have gone to hold the doors closed. He then looked at one of the cockroach-like bugs that had fallen on its back just inside before the doors closed, and he realised, it had a face, a red skull-like face, and it seemed to be shouting at him or taunting him. It was so creepy, Steve stomped on it. 

There was a loud clang and he leapt back, pressing himself against the wall beside Wanda, as something hit the door. Another hit and a metal fist punched through, creating a hole. It felt around and touched the rim of the shield, then moved to try and grasp onto it.

Steve delivered a kick to the metal fist and it immediately withdrew, but the bugs started pouring through instead. 

Wanda waved her hands, doing her best to push them back and then crush them with her magic, and Steve stomped them. He noticed that Bucky was trying to grab the shield again, but this time he wasn't quick enough to stop him. Before he knew it, his shield was flying at them, so hard it embedded in the wall behind where they had been standing before leaping aside.

The doors were being pulled open. Before they were even open all the way, Steve jumped up and delivered a flying kick. It pushed their assailant right back out into the corridor and there was a loud thud as he hit the wall. The Winter Soldier recovered quickly, rushing back at Steve with a knife in hand. 

They ended up in hand to hand combat, with Steve both dodging his knife attacks and dancing to avoid the bugs, though most of them seemed to be more interested in Wanda than him. He was largely successful in dodging the knife, sustaining only one small nick to the forearm before he was able to rush Bucky and lift him up into the air before slamming him down. 

'Bucky, stop!' he yelled, trying to hold him down. He was too strong however, throwing Steve aside without any difficulty. 

They both flipped back onto their feet and the dance continued, hands matching one another blow for blow, until Bucky finally got in a good punch which pushed Steve against the wall. Before he knew it, the metal hand had clamped around his neck like a vice and he was being lifted into the air and spun around. Everything turned upside as he was tossed aside into a wooden stairwell which shattered the moment he hit it.

Steve knew he'd landed badly immediately, but wood and building pieces continued falling onto him and he was blinded by the dust, so he couldn't do anything but lay still while it came down. He was distantly aware that his right thigh was burning and felt wet. Then something hit his head and he lost all sense of place and time again.

Next he knew, almost everything that had been on top of him had vanished and the stairwell looked completely restored, like he hadn't just broken the entire thing in falling down there. He was still lying at the bottom in a mess of mangled storage boxes and papers though, and his thigh was still burning, which he realised was due to a spike of snapped metal piercing right through the meat of it. 

Despite the restoration of the daylight, he was still feeling completely out of it, vision blurry and ears ringing. 

Someone was there, standing over him, face blocked out by the light over them... or at least he thought so; he couldn't be sure.

'You need to get up.'

The person was himself, he realised. Himself, as he had been, before the serum and Captain America. A mirror image, sickly and pale looking, in the worn old suit and tie he used to wear most of everywhere he went for lack of money to afford anything better. 'Mm trying,' he groaned.

'Bucky needs you. So get up.'

That jolted him to awareness. The mirage disappeared and he found himself alone in a heap. All he could do was focus on the pain in his thigh and figure out how to get himself free. 

In the end, all he could do was pull himself up slowly and let the spike slide out of the wound. It hurt so much his vision momentarily blanked out again and he had to take a moment, leaning onto his left knee, to gather his strength. Once the initial pain had passed, he was able to check a little closer and saw that, fortunately, the wound was not a big one. The spike was a thin bit of broken metal from a mangled trolley that he'd landed on badly. 

On testing his leg, Steve found he could put some pressure on it, so long as he was also clinging onto the bannister of the stairs. He looked around and found another piece of metal lying nearby which was long and sturdy enough to use as a walking aid. With that, Steve was able to go up the steps, one by one, to get back to the corridor where they had been.

There was no sign of the Winter Soldier of course. Nor was there any bugs or any damage beyond the detritus that had been there before, which seemed crazy. 'Wanda?' he called out and wasn't surprised to receive no answer back. 

Silent Hill had revolved again, daylight returned, everything restored to how it was before the siren rang out. Nothing made sense at all; not Wanda, not the way people were vanishing, or the way the whole town kept falling into darkness and changing. James made no sense; nor did the Winter Soldier. The sudden eerie serenity of the place, that was the worst part of all, as it made Steve feel like he was losing his mind.

He found his shield on the floor inside the storage room they'd taken refuge in earlier, pausing over the doors that no longer had a hole in them, like nothing had ever happened. Steve picked it up and shucked it onto his back, wearily, still aching all over.

As he hobbled outside, back across the playground, he thought about Sam, both wishing he was there but also wishing he hadn't brought him along. Though he didn't regret coming, since he could sense that he was getting closer to figuring out the puzzle of James Brookes and Bucky Barnes, he regretted that Sam was in danger. He refused to believe that the situation wasn't salvageable or that Sam was gone for good. It didn't stop his stomach flipping with guilt though.

Steve tore a strip off of his inside shirt to wrap around his thigh, leaning on the swings and securing it as tightly as he could bear. That would have to do temporarily. Steve knew he'd have to try and make it back towards the hospital to see if he could find something better to disinfect and clean the wound with. Fast as his healing was, there was no immediate cure for getting stabbed through the thigh and he knew it was going to slow him down big time if he didn't take care of it properly.

Walking made him feel extremely nauseous but there was no other way. Resisting the urge to rest, he headed away from the school and back along the road he knew would lead to the junction that took him to the town's hospital buildings. 

He hadn't gone far before his attention diverted in the direction of a crashing sound, somewhere further down the road he was on, just beyond the turn. Steve sped up as best he could, following the din towards what looked like an abandoned minimart with its front windows smashed in. 

'Помогите!' a voice cried out, all too real, from inside. 'Помоги мне!'

Steve climbed in through the smashed storefront and hobbled past the cash registers, over to the aisles, rushing over when he saw a pair of legs kicking from under a collapsed set of shelves. He dropped his makeshift cane, leveraged his hands under the main beams and used his superhuman strength to push it all up and out of the way.

Underneath it, a woman in a dirty smock and tights, with a flash of red hair looked up at him from the floor where she'd been pinned down with an expression of shock and fear. She scurried away from him as he tried to come closer.

'It's okay,' he said, holding his hands out to appear non-threatening. 'It's okay. I just wanted to help.'

She blinked at him, frowning, but slowly calming herself. Still staring at him, the woman quickly grabbed hold of a few cans that had fallen around her, pulling them close like she was afraid he would try to steal them.

'Uh... I don't want your food.' Steve quickly pulled out one of his protein bars and made a show of opening the wrapper and eating some of it. 'Got my own, see? Want some?'

The woman looked interested and, after only a short hesitation, grabbed the rest from his hand to eat it. He could tell she enjoyed it by the slightly surprised, slightly ecstatic face she pulled. 

'Спасибо,' she muttered, quietly.

Steve smiled. 'No problem.' He pointed to himself and said, 'Steve,' to indicate that he was telling her his name. 

She slowly copied the motion and said, 'Аня.'

'Hi Anya.' It was obvious she didn't speak any English. A flickering thought of Natasha passed through his mind; a vague consideration of how much easier all of this might be if she were there, and not only because she would be able to speak the language. It was just a butterfly wing flap of a thought that was gone almost the same moment it arrived. 

The red hair had clearly brought it on, though that was the only point of comparison between his friend and this dishevelled woman, dressed in a ratty old black dress, with thick black tights, dusty shoes, and a badly stained and worn military longcoat over the top.

'Вы кровотечение,' she said, alarmed, pointing at his leg. 

'I'll be fine,' he said, trying to make it seem like he wasn't in pain. Steve took out his phone and accessed its gallery to find a photo of Sam. 'Have you see this man?' he asked, reinforcing his words by pointing to his eyes and then to the phone screen. 'His name's Sam Wilson.'

Anya took the phone from his hands, looked at the screen for a moment, then turned it over in her hands, fascinated.

Steve belatedly realised that she had never seen a phone before. 'Что это?' she mumbled.

He gently turned it back around in her hands and pointed to the photo again. 'Sam Wilson. Have you seen him?'

The woman slowly shook her head and he could tell she understood what he had asked. She pointed at the screen, bumping it with her finger, which accidentally caused it to swipe to the next photo.

Anya screamed and dropped the phone, recoiling from him as if she had been burned. She babbled some words at him in rapid fire and he couldn't understand a word of it. Only the frightened and accusatory tone gave him any clue as to what she was saying. 

Steve picked up the phone. The photo had been flipped to the next one along; the Brooklyn Hospital Center headshot of James Brookes which had been sent to Sam and then forwarded on to him by text. 

Somewhere in and amidst what she was saying, something twigged in his memory. 'Soldat,' he repeated a word she had said.

'Зимний солдат,' she repeated, sternly. 

He didn't have to look it up to guess what the first word translated to. There didn't seem to much prospect of correcting her or explaining, so he quietly put the phone back into his inside pocket.

In doing so, his knuckle brushed against his drawing pad. That in turn sparked an idea. 'Anya, is there a church? Um,  _church_?' He tried to make the image of a chapel roof with his hands, then of a cross, to get her to understand what he meant.

'Пересекать?' she asked, finally, but Steve had no idea if she had got his meaning or not.

He quickly pulled out his notepad and looked for a sketch he'd made of a church in New York, faithfully rendered save that crooked cross, added to the top without any conscious thought. This he showed to her.

'Ax, xрам. Cвятилище.' Anya led him to the front of the store and point out and to the right, continuing on with some further direction that he didn't understand.

'Okay, thank you,' he said, and climbed back out of the store through the hole where the front windows once were. It was useful to know what direction to go in to find that church, but first things first. Steve could feel the warm blood trickling down the back of his leg. He needed to fix himself up first, which necessitated a trip in the opposite direction.

He could feel Anya's eyes on him as he hobbled along in the opposite direction to the way she'd told him to go. Curiously, the impression continued as he went on; she was following him, and not too subtley so either.

Eventually he found his way back to the hospital and tried the gate at the front. It had been secured with a thick chain and padlock, which Steve had to break with the edge of his shield to get inside. He didn't quite make it to the front door before he heard footsteps running up behind him and turned to see Anya, scurrying in his direction.

She grabbed onto his arm and tried to pull him back. 'Нет! Это опасно,' she said. 'Демон.'

Steve understood that word at least -  _demon_  - and it made him pause. His leg twinged with pain and he sighed. 'I'm sorry. I have to.' He pointed at the wound and then the etched red cross still visible on the windows of the entrance doors. 'I gotta take care of this. I won't be long.'

Anya let him loose and stepped back, stricken and uncertain of what to do.

All Steve could do was give her an apologetic smile before heading on and going inside the old hospital facility. It was dark and musty inside, dust faintly wandering the corridors, captured here and there in flashes of light from the windows. The place looked in even worse shape that the school had been in, everything cracked, smashed and tinged brown with decay.

It was like entering a maze and Steve couldn't really fathom where to start. He vaguely looked at a map of the hospital on the wall near the reception area, but the language barrier and obscured parts meant it didn't tell him much at all. 

Before he knew it, he was being tugged along at the arm, Anya dragging him on with an annoyed-concerned expression, muttering under her breath. He could sense that she was trying to help, albeit with some reluctance. Steve limped along behind her as best he could, still using the metal rod he'd found for a cane. 

Anya led him into what was probably once a doctor's office, indicated that he should sit down, while she riffled through some storage cupboards. She returned with a box and set it down next to him, first removing scissors and getting rid of his makeshift bandage. 'Снимайте штаны,' she said. Then again, as a barked out order, 'Снимайте штаны!' When he still didn't move, she tugged on his pants and waved at them.

Finally, Steve got the message. He gingerly unfastened his belt and peeled his pants down carefully, wincing as the blood pulled at his leg wound, leaving him feeling extra exposed in boxers only. Anya carefully kept her eyes averted, frowning with some slight embarrassment yet determined to get on with the task at hand.

She poured something into the wound that stung like hell, causing him to yelp and grit his teeth. From there, she cleaned the wound on both sides and gradually the pain began to ease. Steve found himself drifting a little, the adrenalin that was keeping him going despite hitting his head twice and getting punched up waning a little. He found himself thinking of James; that moment they had shared in his apartment, a kiss and an offer of more, and his beautiful shy face. That visage melted into the memory of the stern face of the stone cold assassin that attacked him like they meant nothing to each other, just victim and prey, no,  _mission_. Both faces coming together in his mind's eye to make the true face he was searching for; the real Bucky Barnes. A face he knew every dimple and contour of, with every mood, every detail catalogued and stored in his mind like treasure. Being so close at last, yet still so far away from finding him, it made him ache in his chest. 

The young woman took her time in cleaning the wounds and then had to search out some tape to cover over each side. She secured all of that with some further bandages and then ripped up a tube of slightly stained outer bandages that were stretchy enough to withstand some movement to hold everything in place. Once done, she threw everything aside and said, 'Мы должны идти,' her voice urgent.

That brought him back from his stupor and Steve tested his leg by carefully standing up. It was still painful but it no longer burned with the pressure. They exchanged nods and Anya led the way, out of the office and back along the corridor towards the front doors. 

_'Steve... This way...'_

'Wanda?' he gasped, and spun around in the direction of her voice. At the far end, down in the shadows at the end of the long corridor behind them, he could just about make out her outline. 'Wanda?'

Anya grabbed onto his hand and yanked him back. 'Нет. Это трюк!' she said.

He blinked a few times and it cleared his vision, leaving him unsure as to whether she had been there or not. 

Birds suddenly erupted from somewhere near the dark space where she had been standing and burst along the corridor towards them, rushing overhead in tandem and fleeing out of the front doors. 

'Темнота наступает,' Anya gasped, her face immediately draining of all colour. 'Бег! Бег!'

She turned and fled, leaving him standing in the dust. Steve could feel the build up of pressure coming up through the floor and realised belatedly what she had been warning him of. 

The change was coming. 

Wanda was gone, if she had even been there, so he turned and went after Anya. Even with an injured leg, he could run far faster than she could, so he caught up to her pretty fast, despite her running for all she was worth. 

Sure enough, as they passed by the minimart and onto the main street running down the centre of the town, the sirens started to whir to life again all across the town. This time he could also the sound of birds fluttering overhead, all going in the same direction above them, all going the same way they were running. 

The road began to incline up and they rain past some gates, into a graveyard. The mist ahead slowly thinned out, an enormous building looming into view ahead of them. Steve couldn't help it, he came to a complete stop as he caught sight of the double doors at the front, the circular window above it, the steeple above and, finally, the huge crooked cross standing on top, a swarm of birds circling round and round it.

It was the church that James had drawn out for him before, no question.

People began rushing past him through the graveyard, coming from all directions and hurrying up the steps, running en mass into the church. Steve stared in surprise, watching all these people, mostly old men in ratty military wear and old ladies in black, scurrying like rats on a sinking ship. 

The light dwindled down in billows until everything was plunged into thick black darkness. 

Steve fumbled for his torch. Once again, it showed him that everything around him was peeling away, revealing nothing but rot beneath. The gentle snowfall and mist was gone, replaced by miserable rain and dark clouds, all natural light extinguished somehow.

'Steve!' Anya yelled. She was standing on the steps, beckoning him frantically towards the light still spilling out of the church doors. 

He turned towards her and started when he saw sparks of electricity crawling along the ground and up the steps towards her. It combined with the peeling away bits of reality behind her and formed into the shape of a man.

'No!' he yelled as the Winter Soldier lifted her up into the air by her hair.

Steve threw his shield as hard as he could and it bounced against the metal arm before ricocheting into the church. Though no damage was done, it at least had the effect of getting him to drop her to the ground.

He ran up the steps at full pelt, all pain from his leg forgotten, determined to grab her and get her out of harm's way, but somehow the Winter Soldier managed to pull her back and out of Steve's grip just as they hit the threshold, the doors starting to swing closed on either side. Steve turned back, but he was instantly splattered with blood as the girl was pulled apart before his eyes. 

The Winter Solder held up her torn off head like a trophy as Steve looked on, shocked. He flinched as it was then thrown towards him; clunking instead against the metal doors as they finally shut, securing the church from the darkness outside.

Steve fell to his knees, stunned and numb. He couldn't quite believe the horror of what he had seen.

It took some time for him to realise that he was the centre of attention in the church, a crowd of people standing around and staring at him. 

The silence didn't last long. An elderly woman screamed, 'Мой ребенок!' and fainted into the crowd. Then the rest started shouting at him and at each other, some of the men edging close like they wanted to attack him, the women pointing and cursing. It was a mob in waiting and Steve froze, not knowing what to say or to do. 

Then a man cut his way through the crowd, barking out something which caused them to recoil and calm down almost immediately, coyed by his presence. He wore a faded Russian uniform which looked like it belonged to someone of senior rank and had a black goatee beard that reminded Steve immediately of Tony, though this man was older and far more grey. 'Кто ты?' he asked, then tried, 'Wer bist du?'

That he at least understood. 'My name is Steve Rogers,' he replied, shakily.

'Ah. English.'

'American.'

Strucker's patronising smile grew even wider. 'Американска! Well well. Welcome, Mr Rogers.' He held out his hand, encouraging Steve to lean on it in order to stand. 'My name is Aleksander Lukin. Come now. We have much to discuss.'


	4. Chapter Four

 

**Chapter 4**

 

'The procedure is already started.'

Those words kept sounding out in his mind, even as it fogged with pain and sickness and confusion. He couldn't remember how many times he'd been dumped back into the damp, sour smelling cell to shiver against freezing cold walls in total darkness, or how many times they'd dragged him out, strapped him to that awful surgical table and it all started again. The edges of reality were blurring and he didn't know what was real and what wasn't anymore.

'The procedure is already started.'

The first time, he just remembered fire, crawling all over and inside his body, suffocating him. Then there was some kind of light overhead that made it all twice as bad and he'd screamed and screamed until he passed out. 

The creeping blob of flesh in a decaying doctor's uniform, with its hollowed out eyes hidden behind thick glasses and its fat stubby hands, it watched over him the whole time. It reeked of bile and disease, and when it came close, he couldn't help but retch and recoil. 

'The procedure is already started,' it told him again with its puckered cross for a mouth, every time, before the pain started again.

He didn't know what that meant but he knew that nothing within him felt right. His body was suddenly unfamiliar and heavy. It wouldn't cooperate, leaving him entirely at the mercy of the nightmarish monsters surrounding him.

'What does that mean?' he kept demanding, at least in the moments when he could persuade his mouth to work. 'What have you done to me?'

All he ever got for that was a hit across the face from one of the mangled lolling creatures in ruined scientist coats that surrounded the fat monster at all times. Or a light would flash and one of the things that looked like nurses, except for the decayed and twisted space where their faces should have been, would merrily slash a scalpel across his flesh; his chest, his arms, his legs, they were all fair game, leaving him bleeding all over.

At some point, a metal contraption was clamped to his head and the doctor in glasses was flipping switches which resulted in electric shocks, which resulted in him waking up locked up in his cell again with vomit on his chin, confused as to how he'd even got there in the first place. 

It seemed like only moments later he was being dragged out again by the mangled scientist creatures.

'What is your name, Soldier?' the doctor finally asked him, leaning in closer than ever, the light revealing maggots crawling around in his vile flesh. 'What is your name, Soldier?' 

'My name is...' he started, but was too disgusted by his proximity to speak more. 'Ugh,' he retched, trying to pull away, straining against the straps holding him down.

'Good.' The doctor held up a circular saw and started it going, loud and ominous whirring filling the space. 'Perhaps it is time for the next phase.'

'Sam Wilson!' he yelled out finally, in an explosion of terror. 'My name is Sam Wilson! Get the hell away from me!' He pulled at his restraints harder than ever before, trying everything possible to get away, and he thought he felt at least one of the straps starting to give way.

The doctor stared at him for a few moments before letting the saw slow to a halt and lowering it. The monster almost looked disappointed. 

The next thing Sam heard was the familiar whirring up of the machines, the crackle and then the electricity was blasting through his head again, scrambling his every thought and summoning trickles of blood from his nose and ears. 

Next thing he knew, the doctor and the creatures surrounding him were gone. All that was left was ashes in the air, then a blast of cold washed over him and in the next instant, someone else was over him.

'Sam? It's me. It's me, Steve,' that someone said, voice barely reaching through the vacuum of Sam's abused ears. 

The pressure around his skull was released and there were others there, surrounding him, looking down over him. They pulled the straps free and blood came rushing back into his hands and feet for what felt like the first time in days.

'Steve?' he groaned.

The face he recognised beamed a smile and then he was trying to help Sam stand. It didn't work though; he was too weak. 

The others in the room, two men and one woman, all grey haired and covered up by their rubber overclothes, looked on and then spoke amongst themselves in a language he didn't know. The woman was holding up a cage with a canary inside it, so she stayed to one side as the men released the tray part of the table Sam was lying on from whatever it was resting on.

Steve grabbed the head end of it and they held onto the bottom end, one corner each. Then, before Sam knew what was happening, he was being lifted up and they were moving. Everything was a blur, his mind struggling to take in the flashes of light and sound and changing air pressure. 

Belatedly, he realised this was his rescue. He had already forgotten that he had been waiting for rescue, so the relief of this realisation was intense. 'Steve,' he murmured, intending to communicate his thanks, but too debilitated to manage it.

'Sam, hold on,' he heard Steve say. 'We're going to get you out of here. You're going to be okay.'

The woman said something to Steve and gestured to the bird in the cage, but Sam couldn't quite engage enough to understand, even though she was just about managing a few words of English. The jostling increased as they all broke out into a run. He wasn't awake long enough to know much else of what was happening.

*

The last few hundred yards back to the church had been extremely hairy, those sirens blasting out once again, but they made it back without incident. 

He was able to hand Sam off to some of the people taking refuge there with the promise of medical care given by Lukin. There were no shortage of doctors amongst the group, it seemed. 

Steve was still on edge with them, but he couldn't deny that the risk those people had taken to help him was real. He didn't trust Lukin at all and had avoided telling him too much about why he was there; just that he was looking for missing friends. But even though it had to be obvious that he wasn't about to trust the German Officer who he knew had to have been part of the Winter Soldier project, Lukin didn't seem to mind that he was defensive.

He'd said they'd noticed their arrival in Silent Hill and that they knew where Sam had been taken when a description of him was provided. They'd seen activity in the old auto factory on the edge of town, coming from down in the basement levels. When Steve had asked for directions, Lukin had offered real help. 'Some of us will go with you and help you find him. It is dangerous out there. Monsters lurk in the dark places, even when the light holds its at bay outside. You have a better chance with our help.' The bastard had even touched him on the arm, like he was trying to offer reassurance. 'Trust us. We will find your friend.'

Steve hadn't been able to pass up the offer of help, even from him. Now that he was back and Sam had been rescued from that awful place they'd taken him, he sensed that Lukin would expect him to pay up somehow. 

He stood by, watching over Sam as they got to work cleaning up his wounds, angry at himself for letting this happen to his friend. Steve hadn't seen what exactly had been done to him, or how, except to feel an eerie sense of deja vu over the way he'd found Sam, strapped down to a table, the same way he'd found Bucky strapped down in a Hydra factory all those years ago. 

'Mr Rogers, a moment if you will?' Lukin soon broke through his reverie, as expected. 

Steve didn't want to go but he swallowed his sense of suspicion down to follow the man to a quiet corner of the church, in the shadow of the pulpit, sitting on the front row of some pews just off to the side.

'I would like to hear how it is that you came to this place,' Lukin asked him. 'We have found your car - one unlike any we have seen before, I should add. You are the first Others we have seen for decades. I suppose what I'm asking is... the world that was, it remains then?'

'The world that was?'

'We have been stuck here in this place for so long, over thirty years, we had thought it the last surviving place on earth. Yet here you are. What... what of the apocalypse?'

Steve almost felt pity at the tone of his voice. Almost. 'There was no apocalypse,' he told him, firmly. 'This hell is of your own making. The things you did brought you here. The things you did... to him.' Steve couldn't stop the venom in his thoughts from bleeding through into his voice. 

He watched as Lukin's expression grew steadily darker. After a few long moments of contemplation, he gave Steve a chilling glare. 'Your friend over there was not the only one who came here with you. We know there is another. We saw him when he came into the town. Where does he hide?'

There was an unmistakable air of threat in the way he asked the question. 'I don't know,' Steve said. 

Lukin stared at him, hard, then let his expression soften with his obvious change of approach. 'Look, I will speak frankly. There is a demon here in Silent Hill.'

'A demon?' he repeated, sceptically.

'Something ancient to this place. A powerful force. It cannot enter this sanctuary but out there, it lies in wait. It always lies in wait for us. It's what is keeping us here. It commands the ghost that killed poor Anya.'

Steve shuddered at the recollection.

'Those who saw him say your friend is in the likeness of the ghost. They say the demon called to him, hid him away. This cannot be coincidence. I believe he must be the key to our liberation.'

Steve chuckled grimly, shaking his head. 'Your liberation. There is no liberation for you, Lukin. Out there, the world has turned. Hydra is dead.'

'The cause was incidental,' Lukin snapped, 'We were scientists. Explorers of human possibility.'

'You are responsible for the Winter Soldier project. I've seen the files.'

'Then you will know that we did not create the Winter Soldier. Dr Armin Zola did, many years ago. He created an assassin with a few magic tricks. We refined him... unlocked his true potential. We finished him.'

That made Steve bark out a laugh so loud it echoed in the church's rafters and made several of the congregants turn in their direction, startled. 'And in return, he will finish you.'

Lukin stared at him, clearly astonished by his attitude. 'You do not care for our suffering then?' he said. 'Look at us. We are not soldiers. We were scientists, doctors, nurses. There are women here.'

He did follow Lukin's gaze around the church, looking at all of the elderly and frail people cowering there in their dirty rags and old scraps of uniforms. There was no denying that they looked pretty pathetic.

'Olga there was with child when we were thrown into this hell,' Lukin said, directing his gaze to the woman he recalled screaming when he'd first entered the church, now sitting quietly staring at the wall, her eyes rimmed red. 'The girl, Anya, was born here in this church. She knew nothing but Silent Hill. Now she is dead. Did she deserve her fate, Mr Rogers?'

It was a dirty trick but Steve couldn't help but feel a wave of guilt. If he had just managed to hold onto her, pulled her in through the doors, she would have made it. She had been a good person and had definitely not deserved to die that way.

'What do you want from me?' Steve asked, quietly, annoyed.

'You have no wish to remain here. None of us wish to either. We have helped you. Now help us.'

'How?'

The smile that spread onto Lukin's face at his response made Steve's skin crawl. 

'First, rest. We are safe in these walls. Sleep, eat. You will need your strength.'

Lukin handed him off to some of the old women, who fussed around him in their baggy black clothes, patterned with dust and wear, and persuaded him to take up one of the beds assembled in a vestibule. They gave him some tasteless broth and refused to leave him alone until he'd drank it down and then laid down to rest.

Steve expected nightmares, but all that came was the cold void that had been his only nighttime companion since being defrosted. A few hours of heavy sleep was all he needed to recharge and the moment he woke up, he went to check on Sam. 

His friend was getting some much needed sleep himself, wrapped up on a stretcher on the floor, so he quietly sat down by his side for a while. Thankfully Sam's injuries didn't look as bad as they had when they'd first found him inside that factory. The bruising around his head was mostly gone, but he was still pale and drawn. The cuts Steve had seen on his arms and legs seemed to have closed up well and were almost invisible now that they had been washed off. The cuts to his chest, however, were still weeping, the raggedy bandages that had been applied betraying that with little red lines. 

'I get it now,' Sam murmured, startling Steve from his thoughts. 'Why you fight so hard for him. This place is his nightmare, isn't it? They were monsters.'

'I'm sorry Sam. It's my fault that happened to you. All of this... all of this is my fault.'

'Hey, man. You got me out.' Sam smiled with cracked lips. 'I watch your back, you watch mine, right?'

Steve couldn't keep the guilt from twisting his face into a sad grimace. 'I haven't done a particularly good job of that.'  _Not for you, or for Bucky,_ his inner self added.

'Don't worry about it. I'll be fine. Did you find Brookes?'

'No. I'm told some of the people here saw him right after we arrived. They say something is hiding him. I'm not totally sure what.' He glanced around at some of them, locating Lukin in particular with his eyes. 'Their leader over there, he's asked for my help. These people have been trapped here for decades.'

Sam's gaze went right through him like a laser; probing for his thoughts and feelings, his perceptive nature so acute it was practically a superpower. 'The question is not whether you can, it's whether you want to, isn't it?' he asked, keeping his voice low so that no one else would be able to overhear him. 

The flash of anger in Steve's eyes betrayed him. 'They did this. Whatever that final Winter Soldier experiment in '84 was, it was their doing. They turned him into that thing and it triggered all of this.' He almost flinched involuntarily at the memory of Anya, torn apart, blood splattering through the doors onto him. 'Part of me wants to leave them to their fate.' Steve sighed. 'Not very Captain America, I know.'

'Steve,' Sam said, using his name very deliberately in a way he seldom did, 'I followed you because you were Captain America, but I stuck around because of the guy underneath that. I guess I found it kind of comforting.'

'Comforting?'

'That even Captain America could be kind of a screw up.' 

That made Steve snort. 'Thanks.'

'For real though, I get it. More than I ever did before.' Sam swallowed hard, fighting off a cough and Steve pulled off his jacket, laying down over his friend while, at the same time, pulling out a bottle of water from one of the pockets. The water was drank down gratefully, so he pointed out a second bottle and the food bars he'd stashed in the jacket, letting Sam know he could have it all. 'I know that what happened to your friend was bad,' Sam continued, 'but I also know that you're a good man, who's going to make the right decision.'

Steve closed his eyes, fighting down the revulsion that came at the thought of what the right thing was in this context. He still needed to get through to the Winter Soldier somehow and Steve honestly wasn't sure what he would do if he found a way for them all to escape Silent Hill before he was able to get through to Bucky. Could he really make the choice to leave without him? Or James? The idea of it made his heart beat faster and his breath come faster, every part of him torn between knowing what he should do and knowing what he desperately needed to do.

When he blinked his eyes open, however, a calm overcame him. Suddenly Steve knew what he had to do, or rather, he knew where he needed to go. It came to him in a moment of searing clarity and he got up onto his feet with a newfound sense of purpose.

'Steve?' Sam asked, noticing the change.

'I just realised... I know where he is. I know where Bucky is.'

*

No more than an hour later, he was standing at the entrance of the hospital gates, Lukin and two of his followers in their rubber protective suits standing behind him. 

He'd insisted Sam stay in the church, safe, recovering, but he hadn't stopped Lukin when he decided he wanted to come along, this far at least. 

'The Hydra base lies beneath the church, sealed away,' Lukin told him, 'But the lowest floor of the hospital holds a tunnel which joins the two. It was used to send the bodies of volunteers who did not survive to the mortuary. We believe the demon is at its strongest down there, closer to the earth and the power beneath these hills.'

Steve remained still and silent, completely focused on the task ahead.

'How did you know to come here?' 

He smiled, softly. Besides trying to keep him safe, the ghostly presence of Wanda had been trying to lead him there the whole time, since the moment they arrived. He just hadn't realised it before. 'Just a feeling,' he said, keeping it cryptic intentionally.

'Up here, the sirens warn us when the darkness approaches. Inside those halls, the further down you go, the more the darkness will surround you and the creatures that live inside it will be drawn to you. The way is fraught with danger. It will be difficult to go alone.'

'You don't have to come with me.'

'I wasn't offering to,' Lukin said, with a dark chuckle. 'The demon has brought you here for a reason. I have hope that you will return to us with answers.'

One of the men tried to offer him a crowbar, while the other produced a machete, but Steve refused them both. He had his shield still and it had never failed him yet.

Steve gave them a nod and pressed ahead alone, torch in hand, through the gates and along the short path to the doors. He paused for a moment there, the power inside reaching out to him and making the hair on the backs of his arms stand on end. While he'd long since ceased to feel the cold, he was definitely feeling more and more attuned to the current of energy that ran through the place like a river. The hospital felt like a well, the power swirling around it before disappearing inside to places unknown.

He wasn't afraid. For some reason, and for the first time since they'd crashed there, he felt like he was on the right path, and he was completely unsurprised this time to find Wanda standing at the end of that long corridor he had last seen her in.

'What took you so long?' her distant, ghostly voice said, drifting around him.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I'm here now.'

She nodded, looking furtively around like she was on edge. 'Come with me,' Wanda said, setting off in a run.

He followed along behind her willingly. 'Where are we going?' When she didn't respond, he slowed down and eventually halted. 'Wanda? Please, tell me where we're going.'

She flickered out of view and for a few panicked moments, Steve thought she had disappeared again. Thankfully, she reappeared next to him. 'He won't let me go,' she said, filled with sorrow, 'Not until I bring you to him.'

'Who? Bucky? Wanda, do you mean Bucky? Have you spoken to him?'

'Please... I can't explain. You have to see to understand.'

Though he didn't like it, Steve made the firm decision to trust her. Wanda wouldn't steer him wrong, not now. He relinquished with a nod and went with her as she led him on still more, into the steadily darkening maze of the old hospital. 

They went over to an old elevator and Steve had to prize its doors open before he could get inside. Once they were in, Wanda pressed the button for 'B' with a flick of magic, sending it plunging downward in what felt like a long death spiral, lights flickering and metal grinding hard before it stopped with a heavy jerk and crunching sound. 

This time, the doors opened by themselves. The place they had arrived in was very different to what had been above; it was dark, peeling and decaying, with cold jets of air rising out of the cracks in the floor. 

'This way,' Wanda whispered and led him forward, treading carefully along the corridor, taking it slow. It was clear she was being extremely cautious, like she expected something to jump out at them at any moment.

Suddenly, she froze and put her finger to her lips. 'Listen,' she mouthed. 

Steve held his breath and did as she instructed, but came away certain there was nothing there. 'I don't...' he started and was immediately cut off as a knife flew between them, no more than an inch from his face, and embedded in the wall behind. 

They both tumbled behind Steve's shield, crouched to take cover. 

'Not again,' he heard her gasp, just as something else hit the other side of the shield and then clattered to the floor. 

'You run and hide,' Steve ordered. 'I'll...'

'No, he'll find me. He always finds me. Unfinished business...' They both recoiled as the red cockroach bug things appeared around the edges of the shield, Steve leaping up and shaking them off frantically. 'No more!' she yelled out at him, angrily. 'I'm not afraid of you!'

'You should be,' the Winter Soldier said, his outline silhouette looming monstrously at the end of the corridor. Lightning bolts began to fly out from his fingers, making the air crackle. 

'Go left, right, right, left, into the death tunnel. Don't stop,' Wanda whispered to Steve, red sparks building around her hands, 'Go! I'll keep him occupied.'

Before he could protest, she was running at the Winter Soldier and everything ahead exploded in a haze of red magic. The bugs running at them screamed and exploded in a hideous cacophony and the stench was instantly suffocating.

 _Left, right, right, left, tunnel._ Steve started running, taking his shot. The further he went, the darker the place seemed to get, and the last turn took him right past what clearly used to be a mortuary and led him to what was obviously the long sloped death tunnel between the base and the hospital. 

He kept his light up and on full power as he entered the dark, claustrophobic space, gathering speed as he went. But he had to come to a completely stop when he saw that the way ahead was blocked, though it took him a few moments to realise what was in his way.

A large group of people, no,  _creatures_ , were standing in the darkness, chained together like a press gang.

Steve peered into the dark void ahead, trying to make them out. His eyes slowly adjusted and he could tell that they were doctors and nurses, except their faces were twisted into unrecognisable mounds of flesh and their clothes were all stained and ripped up, like they were the victims of some terrible disease. As he drew closer, they started twitching, subtly at first, then they all turned to him, the chains linking them clanking all at once in a loud bang. 

The group took an unsteady step forward towards him, then another, then another, the cold steel of the scalpels in their hands glinting in the light from his torch. They moved unsteadily but with a purpose, and he could tell exactly what that was the more they grunted and groaned at him.

He flicked his torch off on a hunch and they stopped in their tracks. 

Part of Steve wanted to go back and find another way, but this was the way he had to go. He knew it in his bones. There was nothing he could do but to find a way past them. While it seemed possible that he could do a lot of damage to them with his shield, there had to be dozens in the pack and it would slow him down considerably to engage them.

There was no other choice. He had to get past them, somehow.

Steve waited for his eyes to adjust and then got onto his knees, crawling along the floor to pass by, avoiding their legs and trying to stay as quiet as possible. Every time one of them twitched in his direction his heart leapt into his throat. Proximity didn't improve their looks either; they were disgusting, monstrous, terrifying things. It was obvious that they were there to protect something, that he was getting close. There was no turning back, no matter how much he wanted to run.

As he slid his way carefully past the final few, one of them lashed out with a flailing hand, narrowly missing his neck and cutting instead into one of the nurses. A chain reaction began, all of them lashing out, blindly, trying to find him, blood splattering everywhere.

Steve put his torch down a few metres past them and flicked it on, distracting them towards it like moths as he made a run for it down the corridor towards the door at the end of it. He pulled it open and practically fell inside.

Everything went white, so instantly blinding he had to put his hands over his eyes to block it out. He had a strange and sudden feeling of weightlessness, as if the light had lifted him up and away somehow, and for a moment, all was peaceful. 

'Congratulations, Captain. You're here. You did it.'

Steve slowly let his hands fall away from his eyes, squinting at the figure walking towards him out of the light, slowly coming into view. At first, he thought it was Bucky, but the shape was wrong. So was the face.

He found himself staring into an old mirror image of himself, a dark shadow of the kid from Brooklyn he once had been standing before him, smiling. 

'Now, we must talk.'


	5. Chapter Five / Epilogue

 

**Chapter Five**

 

'Who are you?' Steve demanded.

The visage continued to smile, patiently. 'Isn't it obvious? Has it been so long, you don't even remember who you were anymore?' He shook his head and sighed, like he was taking pity on him. 'I'm you.'

Steve shook his head, adamantly, knowing it to be impossible.

'When he screamed for us, alone in the dark and the filth, I'm the part of you that answered him. I am the part of you that broke free of the ice and came to him. Look inside yourself, you know you're not whole. You've known it for a long time.'

For all the insanity of it, something in the way he spoke struck a chord inside him. 'I don't understand,' Steve muttered, hardly able to speak.

'You really think mere chemicals and vita rays made you what you are, Captain? The serum, the part of it that matters anyway, it was made right here, in Silent Hill.' The visage of his old self stepped closer, coming even more into focus. 'Dr Erskine never told you that, did he? Captain America is an unfinished test subject.' He rolled his eyes at that, like he was sharing a private joke. 'The Winter Soldier, he is the finished product. But we were both made here, in our own ways.'

Steve shook his head, backing away a little, shaky.

'While you slept under ice, I came here. I held him together in the dark. I witnessed it all. The things they did... and I was just a shadow.' Anger flashed into his eyes in a way that made him completely unrecognisable to Steve. 'I couldn't help Bucky. All I could do was watch. Watch and hate. The hate became everything I knew. Then came new scientists with new ideas and everything changed.'

'In 1984.'

Slowly, the light started to fade away around them, darkening inch by inch.

'The serum and its powers made him a ghost story but, even then, he was still just a man. These new scientists sought to expel him from his physical body entirely, a real ghost to be summoned and used at will. They succeeded.'

Flickers of horrors flashed past Steve's eyes in a bundle, too much all at once to be discerned; blood and guts and the edges of blades wrapped in lightning and Bucky's agonised screams pounding into his mind with all the grace of a sledgehammer. It almost knocked him over. 

'Oh they got their ghost. But the power they drew from this place, it was too strong for them. It was not _for_  them. It came to me instead. And I told Bucky it was their turn. I promised they would all fall into his darkest dream.' He sounded immensely proud of what he had done. 

The white light had gone and Steve realised they were standing in a place which looked like it had once been a huge laboratory, with the telltale signs of a military complex laid bare in the decor. In the centre was a big monolithic chair hooked up to all kinds of contraptions, monitors and wires, while a bunch of yellow tanks, large enough to fit people inside, were dotted around the outsides of the room, mostly cracked or smashed. Old consoles had been left everywhere, with seats nearby to them, giving the impression of a place that had once been bustling with activity. Tattered old draperies on the walls bore the telltale Hydra logo.

'Come. He's been waiting for you.' The small version of himself grabbed his hand, startling Steve with how cold he felt. He was led aside, over to one of the tanks. On cue, the glass of the tank lifted upwards and blasts of cold rushed out from inside, chilling everything and creating a cloud that had to clear before he could see what lay inside. 

The figure of a man appeared, suspended inside by numerous cables underneath a set of spotlights, his eyes open and staring, his pale skin covered in pinkish scars that looked like lightning had once burned across him. His hair was long and unkempt, falling over a face which was half concealed behind a mask which looked exactly like the one Steve had seen the Winter Soldier wearing the first few times he'd come across him.

Despite the mask and all the scars, he recognised those eyes. Steve let out an involuntary sob and strained forwards. 'Buck.' 

The eyes slowly drew aside to him and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was him. The real him.

Steve turned to the mirror image standing beside him. 'What about James?' he asked, forcefully. 'Who... what is he?'

'Just as you're what's left of my goodness, so I preserved his. Hydra smashed him to pieces to make their Winter Soldier. Whatever innocence was left became a child. I took him to safety in the world outside of this hell. He grew up happy and loved, back home in Brooklyn, as Bucky deserved. James might never have known any of this if you had not intervened.'

'Intervened?'

'You caused an awakening. A convergence. The Winter Soldier, you did something to him.'

Steve closed his eyes and saw the Winter Soldier hovering over him back on the helicarrier, metal hand poised in the air to end his life, eyes widening with shock at the words Steve had spoken to invoke the memories of who they really were to each other. He'd known that he was looking into the eyes of his friend, not the mindless solider trying to kill him.

'In that splitsecond of a moment, all three of them rejoined. A conduit opened. The Winter Soldier escaped into James' mind. Bucky woke up and took over the Winter Soldier; he was the one who saved you from the river when you fell. They have been falling down through the tunnels between one another's minds ever since. You and I, we have begun to bleed together at the edges as well.'

He knew without any doubt that it was true and Steve nodded, silently.

'It seems the dream of this life is coming to an end,' the smaller doppelganger said, almost sadly. 'So too must the dreamers within it meet their fates.'

A note of alarm hit Steve hard. 'What do you mean by that?'

'For over thirty years, those people have denied their crimes. They have avoided their fate.' His twin pointed a bony finger at Bucky, looking angry and stern. 'It's the only way to free him from the chains they put him in. We must have satisfaction,' he said, darkly, like a threat.

'Satisfaction?'

'Revenge.'

Steve couldn't help but step away from them both at that. It wasn't right. All he'd seen of this place, the pain and suffering of those people, even knowing what they had done to Bucky didn't make it right. 

The slightly manic chuckle that came from his counterpart sent a shiver down his spine. 'I know what you're thinking. You should know that Lukin did not send you here for your benefit. This has been a distraction, designed to keep us both occupied.'

'I don't follow.'

'They have taken James from his hiding place. He is being dragged to the church. They believe he can free them. When they discover he cannot, they will kill him.' 

Steve span around immediately in alarm, trying to find the doors he had come through in order to run back. He was immediately turned around, finding himself back where he started.

'It's already too late for him.'

He glared at his smaller mirror image, angrily, fists curling in frustration. 'Let me go,' he all but growled.

'I'm not finished,' came the firm response at his reaction. 'We will have our revenge, but there is a price.'

'There's always a price.'

The smaller Steve nodded, smiling just a little at the edges of his mouth. 'The price is what it always is. Innocence.'

Steve looked up at Bucky, still dangling there, still and silent like a corpse, despite the wrench he felt at the sight of what was left of him. He understood now why James had been sent out into the world, to live the life that had been denied to Bucky, and it made him feel twice as guilty for his part in shattering that second chance. If James really was lost, then what was even left of his friend to be saved? 'His,' he murmured, sadly.

'No. Yours.' His dark counterpart stepped closer and touched him gently on the arm with one finger.

All of a sudden, Steve's mind flashed into another time and place entirely, into a dark cell with an inch layer of stinking grimy water at the bottom of it and huge cockroaches scuttling about, Bucky naked and shivering in the corner, the stump of his missing arm bandaged but seeping infection, his whimpers of pain and half-heard sobs of, 'Steve, please come,  _please_ ,' echoing around his mind and cutting through him like a knife. 

Then he flashed back and fell immediately to his knees. 'God no, no,' he gasped, curling into himself defensively. 

There was a long moment of silence, the other Steve leaning over him, his face a picture of a grim-edged sadness. 'I envy you,' he whispered. 'Ignorance is such bliss. But there is no other way. We have to come together again.' He held out a hand, as if offering a friendly handshake. 

Steve stared at his hand and a cold shiver ran right down his spine. He knew what would happen if he did what this split off fragment of himself wanted; all those years spent as a shadow, watching his friend hurt over and hurt, the memories would become his. The tiny slither thrown into his mind there was nothing compared to what he would see at the moment of rebirth, the two halves of Steve Rogers rejoined into one.

His gaze went past that offered hand and back to Bucky. There were tears falling from his eyes, freezing onto his cheeks just as soon as they rolled there. Steve went to him instead, braving the cold to go close, stepping almost inside the tank. Though his hands were restrained to his sides, Steve was able to at least touch the flesh one and caress the icy cold skin there. 

There was nothing he wouldn't do for this man. He'd loved Bucky so long, in ways that expanded beyond all reason, he had no idea how else to exist. It was as intrinsic to his being as breathing in and out. He knew without question that he had surrendered to his fate already. 'I love you,' he sighed. 'I've  _always_  loved you.'

Decision made, he turned back to his counterpart and reached out in return.

The moment they connected hands and their eyes locked, his entire being imploded. Reality swallowed him in a whirlpool vortex of thoughts, deeds and memories, two lifetimes melding together into one and the cracks sealed by a powerful force that came from deep below the hills of Silent Hill. The force of it threw him up high into the air and he landed heavily on the concrete floor.

'Steve?  _Steve?'_

The next thing he knew, he was on his back, laid flat out, stiff and cold. His eyes fluttered open to see Wanda over him, looking down, clearly distraught. 

'Are you alright? Are you hurt?' she gasped.

'i'm fine,' he confirmed, calmly, and rose to his feet. There was no fogginess of thought, no confusion in him; in fact, he felt strong. Whole. His fingertips were buzzing with energy and his mind was racing with newfound knowledge and experiences.

The rage that had lived in the smaller Steve's eyes, he understood it now. He  _embraced_  it. He remembered so much hurt, so much pain and anger watching Bucky being taken apart until he couldn't even remember who Steve was. Long nights, laying beside him in his cell, whispering into the ear of the mindless soldier they slowly made him into, trying to make him remember over and over; it had made him hate in ways that Captain America never had. 

Wanda was looking at him strangely, like she could see there was something different about him. He smiled at her serenely in return. 'Thank you,' he said, 'For everything you've done. Without you I would never have found Bucky. Now, I think it's time for you to go home.'

She let out of a sob of relief and responded in kind as he drew her into a hug. 'What about you and Sam?' she asked, head tucked into his shoulder.

Steve kissed her on the forehead. 'Goodbye Wanda,' he whispered with an air of finality, and then willed her back to where she belonged. Wanda faded away in his arms, freed from Silent Hill and all the horrors of the past that it replayed over and over to her. 

She had never belonged there and he smiled knowing that, on the other side of the planet, she was waking up in a soft bed in the Avengers Tower, the Vision sitting beside her in constant vigil, Stark and the rest of the team all there to celebrate her recovery. She was safe.

Now it was time to turn his attention to the people who would not be leaving Silent Hill, ever.

It was time.

*

Sam was flicking through the sketchbook he'd found in Steve's jacket while grabbing a protein bar from the pocket, staring at the ominous sketches with the crooked cross scratched in on every page, when the commotion broke out. Even then, he didn't immediately pay attention. He was too caught up in the cold knowledge that he should have stopped Steve from going off without him; that something had been messing with his friend's head before they had even stepped foot there.

He only really snapped to when one of the women ran past him and jostled his stretcher in her haste to join the growing throng moving down the aisle. From where he was, Sam couldn't see much of what was going on. The language barrier made whatever they were shouting about indecipherable as well, so he had no option but to push himself up onto his feet, taking a moment to breathe through the pain in his ribs and legs as he did, to see what was going on.

There was a loud bang as the doors marking the entrance to the church slowly came to a close, making it clear that the commotion had been sparked by someone arriving. Lukin, he guessed. 

As the group moved towards the front of the church, towards the large circular raised platform with the altar at its centre, he finally caught sight of what all the fuss was about. 

Lukin was there, at the front, flanked by the men acting as his guards, and held between them was James, his hands bound behind his back and his mouth gagged. He was fighting against the restraints and clearly trying to get away from them but wasn't able to do anything.

'Oh shit,' Sam gasped, and hopped up onto the pews, an adrenalin surge allowing him to jump across them forwards like they were stepping stones. He landed just off to the side and had to take a moment to get past his surprise at his own agility, when he'd never been much for acrobatics before, far preferring just to fly. Sam shook it off quickly and pushed his way through the crowd, trying to get to James.

Lukin was shouting out to them all in Russian, like he was making a proclamation. Sam didn't need to speak the language to figure that whatever he was saying while gesturing at James didn't bode well for him, given how the people were all jeering and agreeing vehemently in response.

'Hey!' he yelled as he broke through to the front of the crowd finally. 'Let him go!' 

Hands immediately grabbed onto him from every possible angle to hold him back. James immediately tried to pull forward in response, his voice muffled behind the gag, but he only managed to land hard on his knees, the men yanking back on the rope binding his hands behind his back.

'Ah, Mr Wilson, you should not be so fooled by his innocent looks. This man is in the likeness of the Winter Soldier. To destroy him is to destroy the ghost who has kept us here for a lifetime. Our time has come to be free. You too will be free.'

Sam shook his head. 'That all sounds like bullshit to me,' he spat.

Lukin drew a knife from his belt and held it up, prompting Sam to push back at the hands holding onto him. To his surprise, his push caused a huge tsunami effect, throwing many of the people behind him some way back down the aisle. He was so surprised by his sudden strength, he ended up staring at his hands like they weren't even his own.

In his moment of distraction, the sickening sound of metal cracking against his bones erupted as others accosted him with weapons, bludgeoning him all over his body. The pain of their blows was absolutely immense, going over the wounds he already had and near snapping the bones beneath. It was enough to leave him in a heap on the floor, hardly able to move, spitting up blood. 

Lukin gave an order which stopped them short of actually killing him and the smirk he said it with told Sam that he found it more amusing to make him watch, the sick bastard. He couldn't do anything as Lukin used the knife to cut away at James' shirt, leaving him half naked. The men who had clearly been Lukin's favoured henchmen back in the day held James tightly on either side as Lukin then carved a large star shape into his chest, blood rolling down out of it and going everywhere.

One of the other former soldiers ran up to the pulpit and remove a book from on top of it which Sam initially thought was a bible. It soon realised that it was actually a much smaller tome, rendered in red leather, with a black star on the front. Lukin held it aloft and the people around them cheered, some shaking their hands like they were sending up prayers of thanks.

'This book holds all the mystical discoveries of our time here in Silent Hill. All the cyphers of knowledge and magic. Blood has always been a key ingredient but there is more to it,' Lukin said, clearly for Sam's benefit. 'How would one say it in English? Ah yes... we must also use the magic words.'

'You're crazy,' Sam groaned.

Lukin turned his back to them and placed one hand on James' chest, over the red star, and held the book aloft in front of himself with the other hand. 'Разжигательница, сон, семь, тишина, солнце, побег!' he proclaimed.

A hush descended over the church as the crowd of elderly people in rags, their heads bowed, their frames stiff, held their breaths.

'Разжигательница, сон, семь, тишина, солнце, побег!' Lukin repeated, with more uncertainty now tinging his voice.

James managed to push the gag mostly out of his mouth finally. 'I'm not him,' he said, 'And nothing you do to me will make any difference. You're all damned.' He laughed bitterly at that. 

Lukin's eyes flashed with rage. He spat something else in Russian at James, dropped the book, and then took out his knife again. He held it up high, ready to plunge it into his captive's chest and finish the job.

In a flash, it was knocked right out of his hand by a blur of red white and blue. The shield bounced off a column behind them and then made its way back to its owner, who was standing at the front entrance of the church, the doors slowly closing behind him and shutting out the daylight from outside. The dark silhouette slowly fleshed out in time until the light was gone and standing there, dirt streaking his body, snow dusting his hair, was Steve Rogers.

'Maybe the words you were looking for were, Open Sesame?' Steve called out, calmly. He put the shield onto his back and began his way forward, down the aisle. 'No?'

Most of the people parted ways to let him through without a fight. The men who had attacked Sam with bars and pipes made a rush at Steve, but he dodged them easily and threw them aside. The weapons they dropped were kicked aside as he walked. 

That was when Sam realised, there was something different about Steve. The look of determination was familiar, but the bemused mocking tone in his voice wasn't. The way he walked was completely different to how he was used to as well, like he was there to do some damage didn't care who ended up in the crossfire. Normally, he was efficiently defensive, with the occasional snap into offence when stealth was required, but there was no swagger. Not like now. The biggest clue, however, was in his eyes; they were windows into a storm of carefully controlled rage, powerful and completely assured. Steve's eyes were always kind, albeit world weary. Now he looked positively malicious, every step forward a warning flag to those in his immediate vicinity.

'Surprised to see me, Lukin?' Steve teased, soaking in the apprehension that rose at his words. 'I'm guessing you weren't expecting me back.'

He gave Sam a pointed look of 'stay there' as he passed by him, but didn't stop to help him up or assess his obvious injuries. 

'On the contrary Mister Rogers, I had never doubted you,' Lukin said, though it was obvious he was rattled and putting on a brave face. 'Tell me, what did you find?'

Steve smiled and it was legitimately terrifying to Sam how he didn't look like his friend at all anymore doing that. 'I found your way out,' Steve said, with an ominous chuckle.

Calmly, he continued forward and stepped onto the circular platform. The men on either side of Lukin moved to intervene, but their leader waved them off, eyeing Steve with unveiled curiosity. When Steve drew close and held out a hand to him, smiling, he gently put the book into it.

'You had the right idea. Unfortunately, you used the wrong words.'

Steve flicked through some of the pages. Then he pulled the zippo he'd stashed in his pants earlier out, held the book aloft and made a show of setting it on fire.

'What are you doing?' Lukin demanded. 

'I know the words,' he said, through gritted teeth, pressing his eyes closed. 'By God, I know those words.'

He dropped the book onto the altar to let it burn away silently to ashes on the stone. Then he pointed at the men on the platform with him. 'Back away. All of you!'

They waited for Lukin to give them some sign of what to do. He stared at Steve hard for a few moments, clearly not sure whether to trust him, but inevitably gave the nod for them to as he said. 

Steve gently lifted James into his arms, picking him up out of the pool of blood growing around him. He took them off the circular platform and kneeled down just in front of it, cradling him. Steve whispered something in his ear. He then spared a moment to look across to Sam, giving him a wan smile that was probably meant to reassure.

Finally, he put his hand over the red star carved into James' chest and took a deep breath. 'Тоска, Ржавый, Семнадцать, рассвет...'

Energy began to build up around them, causing James to completely pass out.

'...Печь, девять, Доброкачественная...' 

Electricity next began to build, moving in rivulets out from the two of them, making the crowd back away in fear as the bolts crawled towards them. The air began to swirl around the church and the light pouring in from the windows began to dim.

Outside, the warning sirens had started to sound.

'...Возвращение домой...' 

Lukin's forehead gradually creased and then his eyes began to widen in realisation. 'Нет...'

'...Один...' Steve continued, smiling, darkly. 

'Убирайся! Всем!' Lukin yelled, turning to the crowd, causing panic to break out, the people in the church turning and tripping over each other to get to the doors.

'...Грузовой автомобиль,' he said, and the light completely died. 

Everything went dark and the sirens cut off, and all that could be heard was the gasps and whimpers of Lukin's followers as they stopped still, not knowing what was happening. 

Torches were flicked on, beams awakening around them from every direction, back and forth across where Steve was sitting, cradling his friend in his arms. Behind him, the circular platform crumbled away, the altar cracking and falling away with it, leaving a huge gaping hole in the room. Dry ice began to roll outwards around him, crawling along the floor of the church and sucking all warmth out of the room.

Though no one else probably heard it, Sam heard Steve whisper, 'For Bucky,' to himself before closing his eyes and curling into James. 

Screams erupted to the rear of the church as an explosion of lightning heralded the arrival of the Winter Soldier, standing in front of the doors in all his ominous glory, a gun in one hand and a large knife in the other.

'What have you done?' Lukin demanded. 'You've brought the darkness in! What have you done!?'

The sound of creaking metal drowned out the commotion of people being killed one by one by the ghost, something rising out of the circular hole behind Steve. Metal tendrils snapped up like a leviathan crawling upwards into the church, some with bright spotlights attached, some snapping with electrical currents. At their centre was the figure of a man, tethered into the metal contraption, seemingly helpless as a mannequin, still masked but with his eyes wide open and staring hard at Lukin. 

'Мой Бог,' Lukin gasped, frozen to the spot at the sight, even as behind him people were running around frantically, the air filled with screams, the floor already becoming littered with severed limbs and pools of blood as the unleashed Winter Soldier enacted his revenge on them.

The metal tendrils wrapped around Lukin's arms, lifting him up into the air as if he was being given a private audience. 'Stop!' he screeched to Steve. 'Stop him! Please! Please!'

Steve opened his eyes and looked up at him. He watched him dangling there for a moment. 'I don't like bullies,' he muttered, and then shut his eyes again.

Electrified metal tendrils slammed into Lukin's body and lit him up, electricity slamming through him, quickly melting his skin and setting fire to his insides as he screamed and writhed in the air. When the screaming began to die down, the metal ties around his hands pulled in opposite directions and the ones down his middle stabbed through, ripping him in two. Blood and guts splashed down and landed on Steve and James like a baptism.

Sam shielded his eyes from the gory splatter, but couldn't help gasping in shock when he looked again and saw that Steve was smiling. 

Next to him, one of the men who had been acting at Lukin's soldiers let out a revulsed sound of horror. He grabbed the knife that had been dropped to the floor earlier and grabbed Sam, lifting him by the front of his shirt and pushing the tip of the knife at his neck. 'Останови его!' he demanded, angrily, shaking him. 'Останови его!'

One of the metal tendrils grabbed the man by the hand and lifted him into the air. Another wrapped around him, cutting off his screams, and within seconds he was squeezed into a lifeless, bloody pulp.

Sam looked up and saw the Winter Soldier standing over him, staring down, covered in blood from head to toe.

That did it for Sam. It was too much. He curled into himself, the sound of pain and death ringing in his ears, hands over his face to will it all away.

And before he knew what was happening, it was all over. The darkness faded away and so did all the chaos that had been around him, leaving silence in its wake.

Sam managed to sit up and look around, finding himself in a dusty old church. There were no bodies, no blood on the floor; no sign of anything out of the ordinary, except that it was an old building in obvious need of repairs, that he had no business being inside. Yet his clothes were still bloodied. His ribs were still aching and his face still felt like he'd taken a hard slug from a champion boxer. His ears were still ringing with the sounds of gunshots, metal creaking and the ardent screams of the dying.

Steve was busy helping James to his feet, the two of them clinging onto each other shakily as they got up. But there were no marks on James' body at all; the clumsily carved star was visibly gone from his skin. Sam watched the two of them smile and nod to each other with soft eyes, like they weren't even surprised by anything that had just happened.

James turned to him first, and Sam immediately got the same eerie sensation looking at him as he had looking at Steve in the church. He was different somehow. He strode to Sam and knelled down next to him. 

He held out a hand and Sam wasn't sure what to do. In the end he went with his natural response and took it in a handshake. 'Bucky Barnes.'

'Sam Wilson,' Sam replied, and suddenly realised that the pain all through his body had switched off entirely.

Bucky pulled him to his feet and it didn't hurt at all. Sam patted himself down to be sure, but his injuries were definitely gone all of sudden, like a miracle.

'Nice to meet you, Sam,' Bucky said.

All Sam could do was gape at him, not sure what was going on or what to believe.

Steve came over and crowded close to Bucky, hands brushing together. 'It's time to go home,' Steve said.

'I'd like that,' Bucky agreed, softly.

It was utterly surreal. Sam watched, dazed, as Steve went to retrieve his jacket from the floor on the side of the church where, not too long ago, Sam had been lying on a stretcher. He stood back as Steve put it onto Bucky, fussing and making sure it was fastened tight against the cold as they wandered outside through broken doors. 

Steve turned back before they reached the steps down into the cemetery. 'It's okay, Sam,' he said, smiling, looking simultaneously exactly like the friend he'd come to know and admire and yet nothing like him at all. 

There was nothing else for Sam to do but to follow behind them as they began the long walk back to the car, through a town which now just looked like a regular old abandoned relic, tucked away in the Siberian hillside and forgotten across the decades. Nothing was said and yet he could tell Steve and Bucky were talking to each other with glances and smiles, rendering the silence oddly deafening.

All the while, he kept questioning everything he'd seen and felt while there. Had he really been so badly hurt? It didn't seem possible, given how well and whole he felt now. In fact, he felt better than he'd felt when they'd arrived even. Was the man walking beside Steve now really Bucky Barnes? He couldn't even begin to fathom how that possibly worked. Did the nightmare of Silent Hill really happen the way he remembered it?

Despite all of the questions swirling around his mind, he didn't ask any of them out loud. There was a veil of serenity around them that Sam simply couldn't bring himself to break.

When they got to the car, Bucky wordlessly got into the back and Steve hung back. 'Sam, do you mind driving?' he asked.

Sam shrugged, feeling no hint of tiredness whatsoever to prevent him from doing so. 'No problem, man,' he said.

Steve nodded and put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. 'Thank you, Sam. For everything. I can't tell you what it means to me to have had you as a friend.' 

That made him smile, despite feeling a niggle of foreboding at the finality of his words. 'It's been my pleasure, Cap.'

'Please,' he said with an uncharacteristic grin, 'Call me Steve.'

Sam nodded and watched him climb into the back next to Bucky. He had a strange feeling like he was missing some vital piece of information, but in the absence of clarity on why, he shrugged it off and got into the front of the car. 

in the rearview mirror, he watched Bucky climb into Steve's lap and curl up against him, head tucked under his chin. Steve pressed his lips to his forehead and then remained in that position with a visible sigh of happiness. Bucky let him stay there, then fussed and tilted his head up, nuzzling against his jawline before relaxing back against him as he was before. 

Sam understood something about the two of them then that he hadn't really got before. He honestly could have kicked himself when it was so painfully obvious that they had been more than friends. Way more. So obvious in hindsight that he actually groaned inwardly at not realising it before.

He turned the keys in the ignition and this time the car's engine came to life quite happily, like there had never been an issue. Sam turned it around and drove towards the road that had appeared to sheer into a cliff edge before, but which now he could see was just fine through the haze of fog that lingered over it. The bridge back to normality was up ahead and Sam wasted no time in driving them over it.

A warm feeling settled over him with the constant hum of the engine and the clear skies breaking through ahead. It was easy to settle into a rhythm for the drive, his mind clearing, all the strain of what they had gone through falling way. The occasional glance back told him that Steve and Bucky were still there, content and still together, the very picture of calm, and it made him feel equally serene.

The trip back to Tiksi seemed somehow far faster than the drive out from there had been, like time had bent a little to make life easier for them. Sam drove the rental car back to the airport and parked it up next to the hanger where the quinjet was waiting.

Friday opened the door automatically and Sam wasted no time in heading inside, taking up residence in the cockpit, relieved to be going home finally. 

'I'm glad to see you have returned, Sam Wilson,' she said, merrily. 'You appear well.'

'Yes, thank you Friday.'

'May I ask after the whereabouts of Captain Rogers and James Brookes?'

'Hmm?'

Friday repeated the question and Sam frowned, blinking. 'Uh...'

The memory of the journey back was suddenly changing in his mind, like a mist was being lifted from his mind. He realised, with a start, that what he was remembering now was different to how it had seemed before when he was on the road.

Sam closed his eyes, mortified. Because he now realised, every time he'd looked back, the seats had been empty.

The seats had been empty the whole time.

He'd left Silent Hill alone.

 

 

**Epilogue**

 

Sam woke up to the sound of music playing in his apartment. At first he thought it his phone, or his sound system, but as he came to awareness he realised it was not a tune he recognised.

It was old sounding, like some scene from a weathered filmreel was playing with a vinyl record running in the background, some old time crooner singing his heart out.

He snapped out of bed almost instantly. Ever since coming back from Russia, it had become a lot easier waking up and getting out of bed. Actually, everything was a lot easier these days. The newfound strength and abilities had taken some getting used to of course, and he wasn't ever getting used to Tony Stark treating him like a labrat trying to figure out how it had happened, but all in all he felt like a new person. Stronger, better, faster, healthier. 

Sam lightly padded out of his bedroom, looking around for the source of the music that was filtering into his apartment like sunlight through blinds. 

A loud clatter had him rushing to his bathroom, and he stopped in the doorway in surprise when he saw Steve's shield, wobbling on the floor like it had been dropped there from above somewhere. 

_Days may not be fair always,  
That's when I'll be there always._

The music got louder as he stepped inside to retrieve the shield. Sam ended up standing in front of his large bathroom mirror, staring. His reflection was missing and instead a scene from another place entirely was playing out. He was looking at an old apartment with aging wallpaper and ratty furnishings, two men in slacks and loose shirts slow dancing to the music from an old radio on a table in the corner.

_Not for just an hour,_  
_Not for just a day,_  
_Not for just a year,_  
_But always._

Steve had his head resting on Bucky's shoulder as they gently swayed to the music, and as they turned, he gave Sam a beaming smile and a wave. 

Sam swelled inside at the sight and a huge weight felt like it was lifting off of his shoulders. He waved back, happily. Then he picked up the shield and gave his friend a nod of understanding, 

The world still needed a Captain America, but Steve Rogers was not just him. He was just some romantic kid from old time Brooklyn who'd never stopped loving his best pal. The title was bigger than one man; Sam got that now. 

'Bye Steve,' he sighed, and watched them fade away into their own private world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I really hope you enjoyed the story.
> 
> Regards the Russian in this story, it's not translated here as there's no real need to understand what's being said. I'm sure parts are wrong though, as I don't speak the language, so if anyone wants to make any corrections, please feel free!
> 
> Also, this is the music from this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_kNWZOhzBg (I like later versions more, but this is the 1926 version that would have been heard by Steve and Bucky on the radio. One of my favourite romantic songs of all time.)


End file.
